EU lawmakers rejected on Thursday the tough position recommended by a key committee on an overhaul of EU copyright rules which aim to make tech giants such as Google and Facebook share revenues with publishers, broadcasters and artists.

Read: EU Parliament committee votes for tougher EU copyright rules

The revamp has triggered strong criticism from Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales, World Wide Web inventor Tim Berners-Lee, net neutrality expert Tim Wu, internet pioneer Vint Cerf and others.

Europe's broadcasters, publishers and artistes such as Paul McCartney back the overhaul, saying it would level the playing field for contents holders.

A total of 318 law makers voted against opening talks with EU countries based on the committee's proposal while 278 voted in favour, and 31 abstained.

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