EU – Baltic States, Law and Regulations, Legislation, Markets and Companies

The proposal was rejected by 318 votes to 278, with 31 MEPs abstaining.

As LETA was told at the European Parliament’s Information Office (EPIO) in Latvia, European lawmakers in their vote on Thursday rejected a draft document, approved on June 20 by the European Parliament Committee on Legal Affairs, that would have authorized the talks with EU member states on the copyright directive.

Lawmakers are now expected to return in September to the plans, which are aimed at ensuring creators of creative content -- whether music, movies or news -- are paid fairly in a digital world.

European Parliament rapporteur Axel Voss said after the vote: “I regret that a majority of MEPs did not support the position which I and the Legal Affairs Committee have been advocating. But this is part of the democratic process. We will now return to the matter in September for further consideration and attempt to address peoples’ concerns whilst bringing our copyright rules up to date with the modern digital environment.”

The draft law was firmly resisted by major US tech giants as well as advocates of Internet freedom. This was also pointed out by Latvian MEPs who said that “Internet giants” are opposing the directive because they do not want to share their revenue with the authors of creative content. The Latvian MEPs also told LETA that the proposed copyright regulation poses no threat to Wikipedia or Internet users.

Latvian MEP Artis Pabriks said that there have been plenty of misinterpretations in the debate about the proposed copyright law as authorities have failed to provide clear explanations about the planned changes and their effects, while critics of the directive have failed to study its provisions in detail.