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Further details and in-depth discussion are needed for the proposed exceptions to copyright published in outline by the government just before Christmas, according to publishers and authors' representatives.
The government is to introduce exceptions to copyright law that would allow individual users to make copies of copyrighted materials, including e-books, onto "any medium or device" for their own private use, although they would still be prohibited from sharing them. It also plans to give academic researchers the right to make copies of copyrighted works for their own "computer analysis" - so-called 'data mining'. Draft legislation is to be published for technical review this year.
A spokesperson for publisher Springer commented: "At Springer we very much welcome further discussion of the details of the Government’s proposal, particularly in the areas of education, data analytics for non-commercial research, as well as research and private study. Springer already accommodates most non-commercial text and data mining but remains cautious due to security and system stability issues."
A Wiley spokesperson said the publisher was "involved in a number of exciting collaborative initiatives exploring text and data mining" and that Wiley was also "eager to participate in the proposed discussions between researchers and publishers facilitated by government, in order to build sound practices around common standards and data formats, content access protocols, licensing terms and the redistribution of outputs."
Meanwhile Nicola Solomon, chief executive of the Society of Authors, said the majority of the proposed exceptions seemed unlikely to impact authors very heavily, but that the government's proposals on exceptions for copyright on quotation and news reporting could benefit some SoA members but disadvantage others.
"The devil is completely in the detail," she said. "Our concern is that the government says it will bring in these measures by bulk statutory instruments, and they won't get independently discussed. So things may be passed that haven't been thought through."
Publishers Association chief executive Richard Mollet has already commented: "The exemptions [around private copying] that are proposed are very narrow, which is good news, but whilst they might work for music CDs, there will be issues around their workability for e-books, which could introduce massive practical problems.... We will have to go away now and spend time assessing the impact."