Twist in the plot at the European Parliament, regarding the Digital Services Act (DSA)
The website Euractive.com has reported that on Friday, 10 June, the European Parliament opposed the new version of the Digital Services Act (DSA) drafted when a political consensus was reached in the April 2022 Trilogue.
The majority of MEPs believe that two crucial indents, 28 and 29, of the finalized wording of the proposal for the regulation breach that consensus.
Meanwhile, indent 28 is the most controversial. In the EP’s view this does not provide adequate protection for copyright holders as hosting service providers can be ordered to follow the notice and stay down rule when monitoring illegal content.
A clause of that kind would be an exception to the upheld rule, already known from the E-commerce Directive, under which a general obligation cannot be placed on intermediaries to monitor content posted on their platforms. Although MEPs might not support inserting the indent 29 amendments into the Digital Services Act, they are willing to accept it as part of a compromise in which the Council of the European Union agrees that the version of indent 28 proposed by the EP can remain.
The objection raised in this matter is surprising, as a vote on the finalized version of the DSA was provisionally scheduled for an EP plenary session to be held on 4 July, 2022.