"Licences for Europe - A Stakeholder Dialogue" text and data mining for scientific research purposes working group | LIBER

Use the link to access the full text letter and the list of signatories.  The letter opens as follows: "We write to express our serious and deep-felt concerns in regards to Working Group 4 on text and data mining (TDM).  Despite the title, it appears the research and technology communities have been presented not with a stakeholder dialogue, but a process with an already predetermined outcome –namely that additional licensing is the only solution to the problems being faced by those wishing to undertake TDM of content to which they already have lawful access. Such an outcome places European researchers and technology companies at a serious disadvantage compared to those located in the United States and Asia. The potential of TDM technology is enormous. If encouraged, we believe TDM will within a small number of years be an everyday tool used for the discovery of knowledge, and will create significant benefits for industry, citizens and governments.McKinsey Global Institute reported in 2011[1]that effective use of ‘big data’ in the US healthcare sector could be worth more than US$300 billion a year, two-thirds of which would be in the form of a reduction in national health care expenditure of about 8%. In Europe, the same report estimated that government expenditure could be reduced by €100 billion a year. TDM has already enabled new medical discoveries through linking existing drugs with new medical applications, and uncovering previously unsuspected linkages between proteins, genes, pathways and diseases[2]. A JISC study on TDM found it could reduce 'human reading time' by 80%, and could increase efficiencies in managing both small and big data by 50%[3]. However at present, European researchers and technology companies are mining the web at legal and financial risk, unlike their competitors based in the US, Japan, Israel, Taiwan and South Korea who enjoy a legal limitation and exception for such activities. Given the life-changing potential of this technology, it is very important that the EU institutions, member state governments, researchers, citizens, publishers and the technology sector are able to discuss freely how Europe can derive the best and most extensive results from TDM technologies..."