The European Parliament has given the green light to new copyright reforms that could have serious repercussions for tech giants.
On Tuesday, parliament members voted 348-274 to approve the copyright bill, which "aims to ensure that the longstanding rights and obligations of copyright law also apply to the internet."
The majority of the directive is pretty uncontroversial. But a couple of sections in particular have gotten some major backlash.
Article 11, nicknamed the "link tax," says websites have to pay publishers if they show parts of copyrighted content. That means Google News would pay news organizations if their stories are shared on the site.
And Article 13, also known as the "upload filter," would make companies like Facebook and Google liable for any copyright infringements made by their users.
But critics say those would be difficult and expensive tasks for even the wealthiest platforms, and they worry the law will end up stifling creativity online and restricting free speech.
From here, the directive will be passed on to E.U. member states, and they'll have two years to implement it into national law.
