infoJustice

Authors: Sean Flynn, Luca Schirru, Michael Palmedo, and Andrés Izquierdo,

Abstract: This Article categorizes the world’s copyright laws according to the degree to which they provide exceptions to copyright exclusivity for research uses. We classify countries based on the degree to which they have a research exception in their law that is sufficiently open to be able to permit reproduction and communications of copyrighted work needed for academic (i.e. non-commercial) text and data mining (TDM) research. We show that nearly every copyright law has at least one exception that promotes uses for research purposes. We find six different approaches to the provision of research exceptions that implicate application to TDM. Notably, not all recent exceptions passed specifically to enable TDM receive the most open ranking in our typology. And a significant number of countries, marked red in our maps, do not provide a research exception or limit uses only to quotations. This report may be useful in helping countries find models for domestic copyright reform as well for consideration of guidelines or norms for harmonization between countries.

Citation: Flynn, Sean; Schirru, Luca; Palmedo, Michael; and Izquierdo, Andrés. “Research Exceptions in Comparative Copyright.” (2022) PIJIP/TLS Research Paper Series no. 75. https://digitalcommons.wcl.american.edu/research/75