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OpenMinTeD interoperability webinar

Posted on    by Joy Davidson
Blog

OpenMinTeD interoperability webinar

By 21 November 2016No Comments
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Text and Data Mining interoperability at the legal level: rights, exceptions and licences (Photo Credit: HTSABO)

OpenMinTeD (Open Mining Infrastructure for Text and Data) is a H2020 project that aims to make it easier for researchers to integrate the use of mined data into their daily workflows. The project will develop a registry of TDM services and tools to better equip researchers to discover, combine, and use mined data. If you’d like to learn more about the OpenMinTeD project, Thomas Margoni will be delivering a webinar on November 23rd that reports on activity relating to Text and Data Mining interoperability at the legal level. Giulia Dore describes the project in more detail below.

CREATe is delighted to be a partner in OpenMinTeD (Open Mining Infrastructure for Text and Data), an H2020 e-infra project developed by a Consortium of sixteen members that comprises the expertise of many partners with different capacities, such as members of scientific communities, stakeholders and enterprises, content providers, text mining and infrastructure builders, and experts from the legal field. The goal of OpenMinted is to build a registry of text and data mining services and tools and bring them to the researchers, effectively allowing them to discover, combine and seamlessly use these resources in their daily workflows. Within this general remit the aspect of interoperability (at many different levels: software, service, metadata, legal, etc.) is central to the goals of the whole project.

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OpenMinted is an EC/H2020 funded project (grant id 654021).

CREATe is now part of the Consortium and coordinates the working group on legal interoperability (alias WG3), under the lead of Dr Thomas Margoni, Senior Lecturer in Intellectual Property and Internet Law and convener of LLM programme in Intellectual Property and the Digital Economy). The team is further composed by post-doctoral researcher Dr Giulia Dore and other fellows of the CREATe team, as well as by a group (aka external experts) of the top experts in the field. Such a group focuses on the restrictions that apply to text and data mining under the law of copyright and related rights (e.g. sui generis database right), firstly envisaging what is protected and when; secondly considering which possible exceptions may or should operate, potentially following the example of the recent TDM exception implemented by the UK; and finally trying to address the complex licensing issues arising from TDM activities.

The updated status and current results reached by the project are publicly accessible at the website, which also hosts a lively Blog with the latest news and developments. With regard to WG3, the current debate concentrates on how standardisation and interoperability play a fundamental role in fostering the fullest development of text and data mining. At the same time,  the difficulty of conducting mining activities in today’s legal framework, given the inconsistency and fragmentation that surrounds licensing and IPRs  seems to suggest  the need for a more general and deeper rethinking of the EU copyright legal framework (see the related Blogpost written before the EC released its draft Directive on Copyright and the Digital Single Market;  on the latter more was discussed during the CREATe PhD workshop 1st and public seminars)

Text and data mining represents one of the next frontiers for knowledge exchange and innovation. However, according to the current EU legal framework, the reproduction of a copyrighted work, even when only temporary and fractional, must be nearly always authorised by its right holder. Since that reproduction is needed to perform virtually any text and data mining activity, the need for a general purpose and unrestricted exception under EU law constitutes a key enabler of TDM activities. As long as such an open ended exception is not available, the only way to address TDM activities is through a proper analysis of the licensing conditions. For many researchers, however, the need to address licensing conditions in their daily practice often represent an insurmountable obstacle. This is why, one of OpenMinTeD’s main goals is to provide guidance and tools to facilitate researchers’ activity and consequently and to foster scientific and economic innovation.

Keep following us on the website for many exciting news on TDM and legal interoperability!