The European Parliament has voted against the Copyright mandate proposed by its Legal Affairs committee last week.
This rejected proposal included a ‘Publishers Right’ and ‘Sports IP’, two issues that the NMC had been monitoring closely.
The Publisher’s Right would have given publishers the legal tools they need to make copyright work online as it is offline. This decision could now be under threat in a new debate and the result is disappointing in this regard.
However, the result also means that the ‘Sports IP’ proposals are going to be debated again. The NMC welcomes the opportunity to reiterate its concerns implications for public access to independent news information.
The proposals were put to vote in a Plenary session in Strasbourg with 278 votes in favour, 318 against and 31 abstentions.
The vote means that the file will now go back to discussions between all members of the European Parliament and will be amended in the next plenary session. This is expected to be on 10-13 September 2018.