Article 13: the vote will take place at the end of March

Europe’s new copyright directive (comprising the "famous" Article 13) will be voted sometime between 25 March and 28 March, it was revealed yesterday.

The European Parliament’s Legal Affairs Committee has approved the final text of the directive: that means the draft legislation will now be put to a final vote in the Parliament’s plenary session in late March.

Usually, such a vote would be expected to be a formality, given the preceding trilogue process. But in this particular case opponents of the directive (its articles 11 and 13 are, in fact, pretty difficult) are lobbying hard to persuade the members of Europe Parliament to break with tradition and vote the legislation down.

Music bodies may thus be jumpy. “We welcome the positive vote in the legal affairs committee. We do, at the same time, appeal to all members of the European Parliament to follow the informed decision of the leading committee”, said GEMA boss Dr Harald Heker, for example. In contrast: “This is insanely fast, clearly they want to push it through ASAP to avoid a public outcry,” tweeted MEP Julia Reda, of the date for the vote. “We will need huge protests on March 23!”.