Development of the Exceptions and Limitations Regime in the EU Copyright Law on Text and Data Mining

The present article is dedicated to examining the policy of the European Union as regards the improvement of the legal framework in the area of conducting text and data mining (TDM) in the conditions of the digital transformation of economy and society. The subject matter of this study is the analysis of the preconditions and process of making proposals and the implementation of an approach under which a more effective instrument for overcoming the exposed legal uncertainty in the given area is the introduction of mandatory exceptions and (or) limitations to copyright. The main aim of the study is the analysis of the novels of the Directive (EU) 2019/790 on copyright and the related rights in the Digital Single Market setting out - within supranational EU's copyright legislation - the legal regime of this kind. The development of the relative regime was made possible by the active concern of the European Commission to remove barriers to increase the conducting of TDM and due to the activity of various stakeholders. As stressed by the authors, an initial driver of introducing the special mandatory exceptions and limitations to copyright in the interest of TDM was the acknowledgement of the excessive narrowness of the current exhaustive list of exceptions which are not tailored to the requirements of TDM. A special attention is paid to matching the provisions of Art. 3 and Art. 4 of the Directive. In conjunction, they establish favourable legal conditions for conducting TDM in research projects in public and private sectors, including cross-border projects. An essential component of he carried-out reforms is an essential expansion of the range of beneficiaries of TDM for non-commercial and commercial purposes. The following conclusions have been drawn. The new mandatory exceptions and limitations to copyright are designed to increase the EU's competitiveness in the field of digital technology. Further, Directive (EU) 2019/790 creates preconditions for TDM-market that rights holders will control only partially due to Art. 3 and Art. 4. In spite of the European legislator's desire to legitimate TDM in terms of copyright law, Art. 4 still contains legal uncertainty due to the lack of a clear indication on private companies as beneficiaries of the provided exceptions and limitations to exclusive rights and also on goals of conducting TDM, which differ from those specified in Art. 3. This circumstance might put the European research projects financed by the private sector in a difficult situation. Simultaneously, due to the introduction of the opt-out clause allowing to refuse to use exceptions on background contract terms, the European legislator set the situation when researchers conducting TDM with commercial and non-commercial objectives should depend on the discretion of content rights holders. This can establish adverse conditions for the activity of artificial intelligence developers, commercial research laboratories, journalists, and innovators.