It was only two weeks ago, when the JURI Committee had finally adopted its report on the upcoming copyright reform. Today, it was rejected by the majority of the European Parliament that withdrew MEP Axel Voss's negotiation mandate. An important step on the way to prevent the EU from causing severe damage to the free flow of information.
Now all MEPs have the chance to table new amendments in order the change what the JURI Committee has agreed on. You can rest assured that there will definitely be amendments that call for the deletion of article 11 that contains the ancillary copyright for press publishers a.k.a. the link tax. However, it cannot be said for sure that these amendments will gather enough support.
Today's vote was quite close. While 318 MEPs rejected the JURI report, 278 MEPs voted in favour of it and a total of 31 MEPs abstained. This proportion might change over the next weeks and months. The final plenary vote is scheduled for the middle of September after the summer break ends. Therefore, the efforts to convince MEPs of how dangerous, misguided and useless a link tax in whichever form is should not be dropped. The debate just got restarted.