Gifs, memes and snippets from news articles can continue to be shared, under new copyright rules set to be voted on by Parliament by the end of March.

Parliament and Council negotiators reached an agreement on how the EU's copyright rules should be updated earlier this month, although it will still need to be formally adopted before it can enter into force.

Large online platforms should no longer be able to earn money by using journalists' and artists' content without paying them fairly. These new rules on copyright are tailored specifically for the digital age and concern platforms such as YouTube, Facebook and Google News. To find out more, watch the video above.

“We have reached a really good agreement," said Axel Voss, the MEP who led the negotiations on behalf of Parliament. The German member of the EPP group called it a "good and balanced compromise", but said issues such as platform liability might still need to be worked on in the future.

Parliament's legal affairs committee backed the reform on 26 February. Voss said it was now up to all MEPs to have their say: “We hope to vote in plenary still in March. Then we have finished the procedure at EU level. Member states will then have to implement the directive within two years.”

© Parlament Europejski, 2019