EU copyright reforms draw fire from scientists

"An influential committee of the European Parliament is due to vote this month on changes to copyright regulations in the European Union, but the latest drafts of the rules have triggered a wave of criticism from open-science advocates. They say that the proposals will stifle research and scholarly communication. Intellectual-property experts agree that existing EU copyright rules need an overhaul for the digital age, and a proposal first circulated by the European Commission in 2016 had this goal in mind. But critics worry that some provisions in more-recent proposals for the law — known as the directive on copyright in the digital single market — conflict with Europe’s principles of open science and freedom of expression. “Copyright law must not hamper open science,” says Vanessa Proudman, European director of the Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition (SPARC), a science-advocacy group in Apeldoorn, the Netherlands. “The EU has made significant headway towards open access of research funded by European citizens. The proposed new rules would clearly impede further progress, threatening the visibility of Europe’s research,” she says. Concerns focus on a provision that would let publishers claim royalties for the use of snippets of information, such as tables or headlines. This was included with the aim of enabling news publishers to secure revenue from social-media platforms such as Facebook and Google. But a proposal added by a European Parliament committee would mean that the provision also applies to academic publications. Many scholarly publishers, including the International Association for Scientific, Technical and Medical Publishers (STM), based in Oxford, UK, support this amendment. But open-research advocates say that facts and information in a scientific article must remain free from copyright. “We really don’t want further paywalls on top of any research materials libraries have paid for already,” says Maria Rehbinder, a copyright specialist in Finland with the Association of European Research Libraries. Some researchers express concern that the proposed rule might even force scientists to pay fees to publishers for references they include in their own publications. But STM “cannot envisage any situation where students and researchers would need to pay fees” for citations, says Matt McKay, a spokesperson for the association...."