What universities need from EU copyright reform

This presentation to MEPs, their Assistants and the Digital InterGroup in the European Parliament on 19 October 2015, sets out the needs of European universities in the forthcoming EU copyright reform. Set against the context of Open Science, the presentation underlines the need for a mandatory Exception for Text and Data Mining (TDM), which cannot be overridden by contract. The Hague Declaration underlines that research data was never meant to be obstructed by copyright restrictions. For legal certainty, however, and to enable TDM activity on commercially-produced publications, an Exception is urgently needed to allow TDM for at least education and research. The right to read is the right to mine, and users should ideally be able to undertake TDM on all those materials to which they have legal access.