Much has been said about the recently adopted European Copyright Directive. It was adopted after much heated debate, which mainly focused on two articles which were dubbed ‘upload filters’ and ‘link tax’ by their critics. However, much less attention was paid to a new right that’s been introduced: the right to Text and Data Mining.
Text and Data Mining (TDM) is an effective way to analyse vast amounts of data. You don’t have to ask respondents to fill in cumbersome questionnaires; instead, you can analyse what people write online. Fast, cheap and versatile data – think sentiment analysis, brand monitoring, social media listening, and audience measurement.
However, in Europe, the current copyright framework posed a big obstacle for these types of research projects to be conducted.
Together with several other associations, ESOMAR joined a coalition to change the framework so as to ensure that the new copyright law would enable TDM. While initially an exemption was foreseen that would only benefit academic research, thanks to the work of the coalition, a broader exemption has been adopted that will enable any type of research, regardless of whom is conducting it or for which purpose, the right to TDM. This exemption can be summarised as “the right to read is the right to mine”; in other words, if you have lawful access to the data, you have the right to mine it, without having to obtain permission or licences to do so.
Given the vast amount of data available to us, the EU has taken the opportunity to open this up for research. Not in the least because TDM is crucial for Artificial Intelligence (AI), where vast amounts of data are needed to train the algorithms. Without access to real world data, any application of AI would be very much limited. Thanks to TDM, this kind of data will be available, and can also be used in the context of market research.
It is thus safe to conclude that the new Copyright Directive is a big win for our data, research and insights community. And it shows once again the importance associations such as ESOMAR have in defending the interests of our community in front of legislators.
