TDM and copyright advocacy

The draft EU Directive on Copyright in the Digital Single Market is currently being scrutinised by a series of European Parliamentary committees and is open to proposed amendments which could either maximise the usefulness to the HE and research sector of the proposed copyright exceptions or alternatively render them quite unhelpful. This is the subject of a great deal of advocacy by groups supporting a more user-friendly copyright framework and those who are opposed to more generous exceptions.

In this context UCL Library Services has recently lent its support to the European Alliance for Research Excellence (EARE) which provides a platform for those advocating a more generous EU wide exception for Text and Data Mining (TDM).

The original wording of the draft Directive (Article 3) provided an exception only for the benefit of a narrowly defined class of “research organisations” run on a non-profit basis. That would create uncertainty about the position of collaborative projects of all kinds between universities and commercial organisations, including technology based start-ups.

The position of EARE is that since one has to have “legal access” to the information in order to carry out TDM under the exception then the exception should be available to anyone who has legal access not just a narrow class of research organisations.  This is an significant issue for the future of research in Europe given the importance of TDM in all areas of research.