Post-Brexit, UK could seize competitive edge in text and data mining

Call it a small silver lining for the world of research after the Brexit vote: the UK’s prospective departure from the EU offers the country the chance to relax rules on text and data mining and attract data analytics start-ups in the process.  

Leaving the EU affords the UK the chance to banish red tape and other EU-made legislation that bears down on researchers and companies.

The UK is currently the only EU country that exempts automated computer crawling from copyright law, although it puts a ban on mining for commercial gain, in line with EU law.

Here may lie an opportunity for data analytics companies to seize post-Brexit.

“In theory, the UK post-Brexit – in two years' time – will be able to change its legal framework on intellectual proposal,” said Ian Hargreaves, professor of digital economy at Cardiff University, who has advised the European Commission on text and data mining. “The UK could make a serious break with European law and pursue, for example, a legal framework more like the one in place in the US.”

In the US, a ‘fair-use’ defence allows researchers or start-ups to collect mass data and perform computer analyses on it unhindered.

While it is expected that many mobile professions, such as researchers and lawyers, may relocate once the UK's role as a gateway to the EU is gone – and many European countries would happily absorb them – it is also possible post-Brexit Britain could draw data analytics start-ups, said Lenard Koschwitz, director of European affairs with Allied for Startups, a lobby group.

“We currently see countries including China and Singapore doing away with barriers for text mining,” he said. “Why not the UK also?”

Under new proposals winding their way through the EU’s law-making chambers, universities, libraries and public research institutions would be granted rights to mine freely without fear of breaking copyright rules.

But start-ups, as well as citizen scientists, freelance researchers, data journalists and advocacy groups, would not receive any new rights to mine material.

Out of frustration with the proposal, Koschwitz has co-founded a new alliance of data companies which calls on officials in Brussels to adopt changes to copyright law that would align it with the US system.

Hardly any companies use text mining in Europe at the moment – just over 1 per cent, according to data from FutureTDM, an EU-backed project which promotes mining techniques in Europe.

Researchers put forward legal uncertainty, caused by restrictive copyright rules, as one of the reasons for the slow development of mining in Europe.

Universities that want to mine, for example, add researchers in North America or Asia to their teams, because those researchers will be able to do basic text and data mining more easily than in the EU.

Without a change of the rules, “it will be harder for text and data start-ups to grow and raise funds from investors,” said Koschwitz. “Before you invest in a company, you want absolute certainty that all mining is legal – but it is hard to ensure this under current rules.”

Chinese and US researchers are also racing ahead to patent text and data mining systems, although it should be noted there are no comparable EU data because software is not patentable in Europe.

Competitive advantage

Leaving the door open for the UK to get a competitive edge when it leaves the bloc is something EU leaders have said they will not contemplate.

Several countries have voiced concerns over possible efforts by the UK to carve out a competitive niche in its financial industry, for example. Proposals by British ministers to slash corporate tax rates has also ruffled feathers, particularly in neighbouring Ireland.  

Asked if the economic advantage the UK could gain by moving to a more liberal mining regime would motivate legislators to ease EU-wide laws, German MEP Julia Reda said, “I hope that the EU will allow text and data mining for all purposes because it simply makes sense.”

She doubts that a potential easing of rules by post-Brexit UK would have much of an influence on the EU decision one way or the other.

“If competitiveness was the primary concern of the European Commission, it would have proposed a text and data mining for all, not just for research organisations, in order to catch up with other parts of the world such as the US or Japan,” she said.

The main reason why the Commission has not gone that far yet, added Reda, is due to “the lobbying power of the academic publishing industry, which would not change significantly post-Brexit.”

Admittedly, any new rules for text and data mining would only make up a small part of the UK’s platform for a post-Brexit relaunch.

“It's way too early to be able to say where any of this will come out in practice,” said Hargreaves. But “the debate has started to occur.”