What future for text and data mining in Europe? An event in Brussels

In case you were wondering: yes, text and data mining is that exciting

As reported by the IPKat over the past few months (here, here and here), things have heated up in Brussels following the release, first, of a Communication from the Commission and, then, the related "Licences for Europe" initiative.

“Licences for Europe” was intended to work as a forum to which relevant stakeholders reunited in four working groups could contribute to deliver rapid progress through practical industry-led solutions in certain areas. These included: cross-border portability of services; user-generated content and licensing for small-scale users of protected works; facilitating the deposit and online accessibility of films in the EU; and promoting efficient text and data mining for scientific purposes.

With particular regard to the latter, readers will remember that some stakeholders representing the research sector, European technology SMEs, and open publishers withdrew from “Licences for Europe”, due to disagreement over the general approach to text and data mining.

On 13 November there will be the final plenary meeting to conclude the "Licences for Europe" stakeholder dialogue. It will be intriguing to see the final outcome of this initiative.

In the meantime, if you have a particular fancy for text and data mining, you may be interested to learn that the day before (12 November) there will be an event hosted by MEPs Pawel Zalewski, Amelia Anderdotter and Marietje Schaake, which aims to look back at what happened and how to move forward in this area. The workshop will bring together a broad range of stakeholders, including MEPs from across the political spectrum, NGOs, industry representatives, and policy experts. 

This blogger, who will moderate the two panel discussions, is looking forward to learning more about text and data mining and hearing views about its present and future legal regulation. 

Further details can be found here.