What’s in the sweeping copyright bill just passed by the European Parliament

(credit: Diliff)

The European Parliament has approved a package of dramatic changes to copyright law that will have big implications for the future of the Internet.

"We're enormously disappointed that MEPs [Members of European Parliament] failed to listen to the concerns of their constituents and the wider Internet," said Danny O'Brien, an analyst at the Electronic Frontier Foundation.

The legislation makes online platforms like Google and Facebook directly liable for content uploaded by their users and mandates greater "cooperation" with copyright holders to police the uploading of infringing works. It also gives news publishers a new, special right to restrict how their stories are featured by news aggregators such as Google News. And it creates a new right for sports teams that could limit the ability of fans to share images and videos online.

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