EU politicians have voted against a much-disputed internet copyright law that opponents had claimed would "break the internet as we know it".

318 MEPs voted against the proposed overhaul of the EU copyright directive, against 278 who voted in favour of it, in a close vote after an acrimonious row over the proposals.

Article 13 of the proposed overhaul called on "internet society service providers", such as Reddit, Facebook, Twitter or YouTube, to use image and content recognition tools to "prevent the availability" of copyrighted material online.

This would force individual websites to filter photos and videos uploaded by users to make sure that it doesn't break copyright laws, and mean websites such as YouTube would have to pay more to the music industry for hosting music videos.

Digital rights groups claimed that the Copyright Directive, which was proposed to protect rights-holders from copyright infringement on the web, would "outlaw memes on the internet".

Campaigners at Copyright 4 Creativity said the proposals risk censoring free speech because it is likely that technology giants, afraid of hefty fines, will automatically remove content they deem a risk, ridding social media of satire, commentary and inevitably would “destroy the internet as we know it”.