By Santiago Soler Lerma

European Parliament has rejected, 318 votes against, 278 in favor and 12 abstentions, the controversial text –the draft of the Directive- by which some barriers should be imposed prior to the time of publishing content on the Internet.

Specifically, the text intended that, in order to avoid the infringement of copyright on the internet, access to content would be subject to prior review.

Given this approach, the positions are divided between those who consider that the infringement of copyright should be absolutely avoided even limitating some other rights, since not respecting copyright would lead to discourage artistic creation, and those who consider that the use of barriers  could become an authentic censorship that selects and discriminates some contents in front of others.

Both positions are defensible and, in fact, the vote has been relatively even.

In any case, this vote is not final. Now the text proposed – and rejected – for the copyright directive will be returned to the Legal Affairs Committee of the European Parliament for study and, where appropriate, modification, and it will culminate in a new draft proposal that will be soon re-debated.