For Text and Data Mining, Fair Use Is Powerful, but Possession Is Still 9/10 of the Law - SPARC

"Text- and data-mining (TDM) present an interesting challenge to libraries and folks who think about library policy questions, because it reverses the polarity of an important legal distinction: the difference between owning a copy and owning a copyright. For the last several decades, libraries have been working through the challenge of owning copies but not rights. The core question has been: how can we take advantage of new technologies to leverage the investments we’ve made in our physical collections of copies, though we don’t own copyrights in these materials?"