Presidency seeks compromise on text and data mining

The Estonian presidency of the Council of Ministers has published a revised proposal for EU copyright legislation, while research organisations have reiterated their alarm at the direction of negotiations.

The presidency published its revised copyright proposal on 26 September, ahead of discussions among member state representatives on 3 and 4 October.

Many of the changes relate to the use of works that are out of copyright, but the proposal also contains a new paragraph saying that research and heritage organisations should be able to retain copies of files they have used for text and data mining, for as long as is necessary to verify their research results. It proposes that member states should be left to decide the specific rules that would govern this process.