COMMUNIA: Policy Paper on access to publicly funded research
On April 11, 2024, COMMUNIA issued Policy Paper #17 on access to publicly funded research, proposing a change to the EU copyright law that would contribute to greater access to publicly funded research.
COMMUNIA, as an advocate for policies that expand the public domain and increase access to and reuse of knowledge, highlighted the issue of access to publicly funded research in its Policy Paper #17. Although European taxpayers are the ones who fund the research, they are often limited in accessing its findings. In many cases, they must pay publishers again to access the research results, as publishers have acquired economic exploitation rights from the researchers. The current system is contrary to the fundamental purpose of research, which aims to maximize its impact through wide accessibility in the shortest possible time.
To achieve the desired effects of research, COMMUNIA proposed in its document a three-step approach to open public access to publicly funded research immediately after its publication, in a way that a secondary publication obligation co-exists with a secondary publication right. COMMUNIA believes that by obligating researchers to republish, the public interest would be safeguarded, as this would make Open Access mandatory. More about the document.
In the Slovenian legal system, with the adoption of the Act on Scientific Research and Innovation Activities (2021) and the Regulation on the Implementation of Scientific Research Work in Accordance with the Principles of Open Science (2023), a system of retaining copyright on the results of publicly funded research has already been established. However, upgrading the current legal framework with a system of a secondary publication right would increase the efficiency of disseminating publicly funded knowledge.
ODIPI is organizing ERA KR21 Conference: Barriers and Incentives for Open Science in the Copyright Law that will take place on 2 December, 2024 at Hotel Four Points by Sheraton (Mons) in Ljubljana and also online.
The District Court of Hamburg ruled in the case of Kneschke v. LAION e.V. that LAION did not infringe the copyright of photographer Kneschke, as the use of his photograph was covered by the exception for text and data mining (TDM) for scientific purposes.
“Can copyright bring artificial intelligence to its knees? Which other circumstances may cause that the “making” of generative AI can dramatically change in the (near) future. This short paper presents potential challenges that copyright poses to the training of the machines on large amount of data. Different jurisdictions address these issues differently. In the USA the legality of these activities is tested in several court cases. Do gentlemen’s agreements and pragmatic symbiosis known from the “search engines business model” provide sufficient basis and/or incentive for the business model of “making” generative AI business model as well?