The text of the draft Copyright Directive has been further negotiated and agreed upon at the trialogue meetings between the European Parliament, the Council of the EU and the European Commission .

The final text is not yet available, but the European Parliament has issued the following press release: http://www.europarl.europa.eu/news/en/press-room/20190212IPR26152/agreement-reached-on-digital-copyright-rules

It states the following key points:

• “Internet platforms face incentives to pay for artists and journalists’ work used
• Some uploaded material, such as memes or GIFs, can be shared freely
• Hyperlinks to news articles, accompanied by “individual words or very short extracts” can be shared freely
• Journalists must get a share of any copyright-related revenue obtained by their publishing house
• Start-up platforms subject to lighter obligations
• The directive will not impose filters”

We shall publish an update when the text is available, but in the mean time you can read more about the draft Copyright Directive’s passage through the European legislative process here (update as of September 2018) and here (update as of July 2018).

The next step is for the final text to be approved by the Council and the European Parliament.