Moedas encourages text and data mining

Research Commissioner Carlos Moedas this week increased the pressure on journal publishers to give researchers free rein to use computer programmes for text mining research papers telling a conference in Lisbon, “We're encouraging the removal of legal barriers to open science and open innovation - particularly regarding the use of text and data mining techniques for scientific activities.”

Text mining is an important front in the Commissioner’s open access movement, pitting him against large publishing companies which are campaigning for the freedom to self-regulate the market.

In July, Moedas told members of the European Parliament (MEPs), “I’m for, and will always be for, an exception in text and data mining.”

Currently publishers across Europe have the right to grant or refuse the mining of academic journals on the basis of copyright law, EU database protection law, and provisions in intellectual property law. The UK is the only country in Europe that has exempted automated computer mining from copyright law.

Publishers block data mining software programmes by default, but do give special licence permissions to academics and university libraries. They claim that if copyright law were to include a blanket exemption for researchers, intellectual property could be re-sold by unscrupulous researchers.

Publishers also say their computer systems risk being immobilised by the volume of traffic from text miners.

But a recent study commissioned by the European Parliament identified the lack of legal certainty supporting the development of text and data mining as, “a key gap in urgent need for addressing.”

Earlier this week Kurt Deketelaere, secretary-general of the League of European Research Universities called for academics to be given the legal right to data mine journals. Speaking at a meeting on Monday hosted by Julia Reda MEP, who earlier this year drafted a report on copyright reform, Deketelaere said Europe’s universities need, “a mandatory exception for research and education purposes”.