The Right to Read is the Right To Mine: But Not When Blocked by Technical Protection Measures
LIBER Argues For Copyright Reform in Brussels
On 20 February, LIBER was in Brussels along with colleagues from Science Europe and EARE for two copyright-related events: a breakfast in the European Parliament and a meeting with Mariya Gabriel, the Commissioner for Digital Economy and Society.
LIBER’s President Kristiina Hormia-Poutanen was in Brussels with colleagues to meet with Mariya Gabriel, the Commissioner for Digital Economy and Society, on 20 February 2018.
In both cases, we stressed the need for copyright reform and a Text and Data Mining Exception which applies to everyone with legal access to content.
Over 60 people attended the breakfast event, Unleashing Big Data’s Potential for Journalism, Economy and Research. It was co-organised by LIBER, Science Europe and EARE, and hosted by four members of the European Parliament: Ms Reda (Greens), Ms Geringer (S&D), Ms Schaake (ALDE) and Mr Boni (EPP).
In her opening remarks, MEP Reda stressed the fact that text and data mining was a tool being used not just by researchers and universities but in many sectors, often to the great benefit of society. Data mining had, for example, been used to analyse significant sets of documents such as the Panama Papers.
What are the risks if a #tdm exception only applies to the #research sector? @Senficon says businesses and jounalists may have to take business out of #europe pic.twitter.com/F4R1jnEKet
— LIBEReurope (@LIBEReurope) February 20, 2018
MEP Schaake then introduced the workshop’s featured speakers: a researcher, a journalist and, from the business sector, representatives from Zalando and Bayer.
Researcher’s Viewpoint
First up was Ari Asmi, an atmospheric physicist and researcher at the University of Helsinki. He underlined the fact that when researchers create data sets for TDM, they also need to be able to safely store these data sets. This allows future verification of results – a requirement of good science – and allows researchers to build on existing research.
Copyright legislation does not currently allow this data to be safely stored and Asmi clearly outlined the consequences. In one example, he said it had taken 10 person months to create a specific data set for a Finnish research project. This data set had to be destroyed and then later rebuilt from scratch when the project received additional funding.
Asmi also mentioned that, in the context of his research, he needs to mine data from not only scientific publications but also from social media conversations. Pictures of trees on Instagram had, for example, been analysed for climate research. Research of this type, he said, was incredibly difficult since it’s often not possible to know who the rightsholders are for this type of publicly available data. He also underlined how difficult it is to separate commercial and non-commercial beneficiaries due to frequent public -private partnerships and the fact that companies and institutions often work in consortia, especially under the H2020 requirements.
Journalist’s Viewpoint
Adriana Homolova, a freelance data and investigative journalist in The Netherlands, spoke next. She collects, analyses and visualizes data for journalistic stories. Her last big investigation evolved around the unforeseen implications of the European Investment Bank investments in the energy and extractive sector on the African continent. She is also the project leader of Elvis – an online tool for journalists to explore the patterns in public spending in the EU member states. Restricting the legality of text and data mining to a narrow group of beneficiaries would damage this kind of investigative journalism, she said.
#data journalist @naberacka explained at a @Europarl_EN breakfast today why the freedom to use #tdm is crucial for her work #copyrightreform #fixcopyright pic.twitter.com/mFc645Rrc7
— LIBEReurope (@LIBEReurope) February 20, 2018
Business Viewpoint
We also heard from Philipp-Andreas Schmidt who works as digital policy manager for Bayer in Brussels, addressing the wide range of sectors including agriculture and healthcare in which Bayer is digitally active. He mentioned that Bayer has been doing TDM for 15 years, and pointed out that Bayer is not asking to get free access to protected content. The company spends millions on accessing content but want to freely mine content to which they have legal access. They are not only mining data that they acquire but also build up a lot of data internally interesting for data mining.
#tdm certainty is critical for the #research process says @paschmidt13 of @Bayer – one of the speakers at our @Europarl_EN breakfast this morning #copyrightreform pic.twitter.com/fw1ctd0HF4
— LIBEReurope (@LIBEReurope) February 20, 2018
Alan Akbik, a researcher from the online sales company Zalando, was the final speaker. He focused on a fascinating research project to teach computers to understand human language. TDM plays a crucial role in this project.
Innovation in future technologies such as #tdm is key to the success of @Zalando and a #tdmexception is needed says @alan_akbik of @zalandoresearch pic.twitter.com/GSvFiY0uXE
— LIBEReurope (@LIBEReurope) February 20, 2018
Zalando is one of Europe’s greatest success stories. Since it was founded in 2008 in Berlin, it has grown to employ 15,000 employees in 100 countries and is present in 15 markets. Artificial Intelligence and data mining play a huge role in Zalando’s ability to innovate and enhance customer experience, from creating virtual shopping assistants to analysing the latest fashion trends and customers insights from conversations happening on the web or social media). Akbik asked policy makers to create a legal framework that helps European startups and companies to not only compete in the global market but also lead the agenda on AI. For this purpose it must be lawful to mine content which is being legally accessed.
MEP Boni thanked all speakers, and asked his colleagues in the European Parliament to understand that traditional research has evolved and that we therefore need to take the natural step of modernising the rules which apply to the research process.
The session ended with a Q&A session, moderated by Stephan Kuster, Secretary General of Science Europe. Before opening the floor to questions, Kuster stated how even non-commercial research organisations who are covered by the proposed mandatory exception are not satisfied with the proposed legislation since it is impossible to draw a line between not for profit organisations and private companies, non-commercial and commercial purposes.
Modern science doesn’t work in silos and you can’t separate commercial and non-commercial research says @Researchkuster of @ScienceEurope #tdm #copyrightreform pic.twitter.com/ASkp46Qdst
— LIBEReurope (@LIBEReurope) February 20, 2018
LIBER will continue to lobby in the coming months for a Text and Data Mining exception which applies to everyone with legal access to content. Learn more about our goals.
