The European Copyright Directive was adopted by the European Parliament in 2019, and it aims to modernize copyright law in the European Union (EU) to better reflect the digital age. The Directive is composed of several provisions, including Articles 15 and 17.

Article 15 requires news aggregators and other online platforms to pay publishers for displaying snippets of their articles, even if they are only a few words long. Article 17 requires online platforms to prevent the upload of copyrighted material by implementing content recognition technologies. This provision has sparked concerns over potential censorship and the impact on freedom of expression.

The Directive was supposed to be transposed into the national laws of the EU Member States by June 2021, but the deadline was extended to June 2023 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Each Member State is responsible for implementing the Directive into their own legal framework, and they have some flexibility in how they do so, as long as they achieve the overall objectives of the Directive.