Text and data mining exception and the benefit for the libraries

Abstract

In the field of research, the exception of text and data mining makes the processing of large amounts of information with a view to gaining new knowledge and discovering new trends possible, through new technologies that enable the automated computational analysis of information in digital form, such as text, sounds, images or data. Although such technologies benefit universities and other research organisations, in which libraries are also included, they are also confronted with legal uncertainty as to the extent to which they can perform text and data mining of content. In certain cases, text and data mining can involve acts protected by copyright, by the sui generis database right or by both, in particular, the reproduction of works or other subject matter, the extraction of contents from a database or both which occur for example when the data are normalised in the process of text and data mining. If no exception or limitation applies, an authorisation to undertake such acts is required from rightholders. For the benefit of the research community and the support of innovation and in order to secure legal certainty, the EU legislator has adopted an exception for text and data mining, regulated in Articles 3 of the DSM Directive. In this Paper, this exception and the benefit for libraries will be analyzed.