As part of a project funded by Knowledge Rights 21, I have spent the past year investigating the impact of technological protection measures (TPMs) on education, research and preservation. TPMs are digital locks that control when users can copy or access materials. They enjoy strong protection under European copyright law, which prohibits their circumvention. Even when users would normally benefit from an exception to copyright, such as for research or preservation, they must still make a request to rightsholders to provide access to TPM-protected materials.
With Co-Investigators Anthony Rosborough, Victoria Stobo and Felix Rodriguez Perez, we have analysed the legal, institutional and economic effects of TPMs across Europe. On Tuesday 26 November, I will present some of the results of our research on impediments to research and preservation presented by TPMs. Our first report providing a comparative legal analysis of TPMs is available below, while our two upcoming studies consist of a survey of libraries and archives, and the impact of TPMs on video game preservation. Please sign up below to access the webinar.
Some of the main findings:
- Institutions widely reported that TPMs inhibited their core functions of research, lending, learning and teaching, as well as other activities such as text-and-data mining and bibliometric scraping.
- TPMs were a major source of disutility for researchers, with 48% of institutions and 80% of individuals reporting they would avoid acquiring TPM-protected materials. 78% of researchers reported limits on downloading and 72% limits on access.
- Systems to request removal of TPMs are cumbersome, slow and under-utilised. Only 37% of institutions and 29% of individuals had made a formal request to a rightsholder to remove TPMs in order to benefit from an exception, with many reporting slow response times or no response at all.
- We found that TPMs can significantly delay or prevent successful preservation of digital materials, even long after products are removed from the marketplace. For video games from 1976-2023, we found that the presence of TPMs added an additional 10.6 months of delay to the preservation effort, resulting in higher labour costs and losses to society from missing use.
When?
- Date: 26 November, 2024
- Time: 09:00-10:30 UK time // 10:00-11:30 CET
What?
This webinar, from one of the co-authors of a three-part report from University of Glasgow and KR21 on technological protection measures (TPMs) outlined the legal and technical barriers that knowledge institutions face when preserving digital content.
Rosborough, A. (2024). Technological Protection Measures & the Law: Impacts on Research, Education & Preservation. CREATe, University of Glasgow
This report is the first in a three-part series assessing the legal status and providing evidence on Technological Protection Measures (TPMs). It provides a comparative doctrinal analysis of TPMs in the 27 Member States of the European Union plus key comparator jurisdictions including the UK and contains a detailed analysis of the status of TPMs and copyright exceptions, and different national approaches taken inside and outside of Europe to ensure access to works for beneficiaries of exceptions and limitations to copyright.
To stay up to date with our research on TPMs and the access to knowledge theme more broadly, subscribe to our newsletter.