Leading the opposition to the Directive on Copyright within the European Parliament has been Julia Reda, an MEP and member of the Pirate Party Germany. "Lawmakers looked at copyright primarily through one very particular lens: that of big media companies, with their waning control over distribution channels," she argued in an editorial. "The greatest public space we've ever invented mustn't become a casualty of attempts to use copyright law to solve problems not caused by it in the first place. Our freedom of expression online is too precious to be wasted as ammo in a corporate battle."
When is Article 13 happening?
Although the Article 13 vote has been passed by the European Parliament, this doesn't mean its provisions take place straight away.
It will now be up to the EU's member states to enact Article 13 and the Copyright Directive. Each country within the EU will be able to interpret the law and how it should be implemented in its own ways. Therefore one country may decide that "upload filters" should be implemented using one tool, while another may understand the law in a different.