Text and data mining in cross-border environments

Regime in European law, comparative law and in the European system of private international law

Abstract

The new technological possibilities for text and data mining have caused legislative changes in some intellectual property laws. The changes seek to ensure that copyright holders cannot excessively restrict the possibilities of developing new products and services based on the new uses enabled by technology. Among the countries that have developed new legislation are Japan, the United Kingdom and Singapore, to which the European Union has joined with Directive 2019/790. The comparative legislations have been based on different principles that have given rise to disparate regulations. It is increasingly common for text and data mining to be carried out in a cross-border context due to various factors such as the existence of collaborators who work in other countries, the formation of the corpus with content from different origins or its publication or accessibility from different countries. In the absence of uniform solutions, to know whether text and data mining activities that take place in cross-border environments can be carried out without incurring copyright infringement, it is necessary to determine the applicable law. The study analyzes the differences between European and comparative regulations that establish legal exceptions to copyright to promote text and data mining, and carries out a critical review of the solutions provided by the European system of Private International Law in the sectors of international jurisdiction and the applicable law.