A need for a global text and data mining (TDM) exception
The Slovenian Copyright and Related Rights Act was amended in September. The adoption process was intensely problematic and resulted in numerous solutions at the expense of researchers and educators, while also being contrary to the national open science strategy. The issue was considered in detail by Maja Bogataj Jančič and Sandra Koren in an open access article in Sobotna priloga, Delo.
The positive changes in the amendment are due to the persistence of researchers that were supported by the Minister of digital transformation, dr. Emilija Stojmenova Duh. This resulted in the adoption of a progressive TDM exception.
We need a similar arrangement on a global scale. This is the goal of a group of academics from around the world, including Sean Fiil-Flynn, João Quintais and Carys Craig, who have published a joint opinion piece in Science Magazine, discussing legal reform to promote text and data mining research on a global scale.
The ability to undertake data analytics based on vast amounts of information using automated tools is essential to the right to research. However, copyright can stand in the way. The authors offer an overview of TDM regulation around the world and call for implementation of TDM exceptions around the world. The overview does not yet take the new Slovenian exception into account.
The authors put forward a number of proposals for copyright reform, including a WIPO international treaty to introduce copyright exceptions to permit TDM research across the globe.
On September 16, 2023, Dr. Maja Bogataj Jančič participated in the event @Re:Source MAH – the 10th International Conference on Histories of Media Art, Science and Technology. The program was divided into various categories (“tracks”), specifically focusing on the documentation and preservation of media arts; climate change; pioneers of media arts; and the history of media arts in museums.
The U.S. Copyright Office has once again denied the registration of an artwork created by artificial intelligence. Artist Jason M. Allen was unsuccessful in his second attempt to register the artwork “Theatre D’opera Spatial” as a copyrighted work because it contains more than a de minimis amount of content generated by artificial intelligence (AI).
On Friday 23 June 2023, a webinar entitled “Copyright and Legal Basis for Generative Artificial Intelligence Training” was held as the inaugural event of an informal research network in the region in the field of copyright. Researchers from Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia and North Macedonia participated in the event, which is part of the national Open Knowledge Day initiative and the national and regional coordination activities carried out by ODIPI under the auspices of Knowledge Rights 21.
The new report of the Knowledge Rights 21 project partner SPARC Europe is now available.