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Module 1: Getting Familiar with the EU Copyright Law and Data and Digital Legislation

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The training curriculum is currently undergoing final revisions and quality checks. All materials will be released shortly. Until the official release, please refrain from using, distributing, or implementing any part of these resources.

Learning Objectives

  • Learning Objective 1 (LO1): Identify basic rules for access, ownership, (re)use and sharing of data, databases and other copyrightable materials under EU Copyright Law as well as Data and Digital Legislation.

Total Module Duration

1 hour -- excluding pre-session work (instructor may go into more detail if needed, and take longer)

Learning Objective 1

LO1: Identify basic rules for access, ownership, (re)use and sharing of data, databases and other copyrightable materials under EU Copyright Law as well as Data and Digital Legislation.

Learning Activities

  • Pre-session activity: Learners should follow the self-paced online course linked under Resource 1, along with recommended additional and optional reading (at a minimum, Resources 2 and 3).
  • Recap activity (30 mins): To test understanding and facilitate retention of the basic knowledge of the topic, the instructor should, along with learners, recap the main points from the self-paced course followed in Resource 1. Some key points to highlight in this activity are mentioned in the Instructor Notes.
  • Discussion activity (30 mins): The goal of the discussion is to identify some of the legal issues and laws in learners' own contexts per training to reuse of data and other research outputs covered by intellectual property rights and data laws. In breakout groups, the following prompt can be used to facilitate the activity:
    • Does regulating access and control to publications and data facilitate or harm the progress of science?
    • Example sub-questions:
      • Is there a difference between copyright and Data and Digital Legislation in this respect? (Note: this can be used to split the group into two sub-groups to discuss and present their conclusions.)
        Suggestions: Consider protection of authors' interests under copyright (also: commercial publishing practices taking away their copyrights), the transaction costs related to licensing in a transnational environment, and the risks of Data and Digital Legislation being new legislation with not enough literature to ensure legal certainty.
      • When is Open Science not the answer? What are the drawbacks of Open Science?
        Suggestions: Consider lost anonymity of review (in Open Review), lost authorship, misuse of personal data by scientific institutions or third parties, disruption of privacy, and data utilisation for harmful or ethically/religiously unacceptable research – see Lakomy et al. (2019), Resource 7.

Materials to Prepare

  • Key takeaways from Resources 1-5 to guide the recap activity.
  • Questions and prompts to guide the discussion activity.

Instructor Notes

Content that should be covered within the activities of this module:

  • Copyright
    • An overview of the EU legal framework on data
    • Introduction to Intellectual Property and Intellectual Property Rights (IPRs)
    • Implications of IPRs from the author's and the user's perspective
    • Legal protection of databases
    • Territoriality and fragmentation of EU copyright
    • Limitations and Exceptions (L&Es)
    • Publication and the role of consent
  • Data and Digital Legislation (DDL)
    • Direct applicability of Regulations
    • Data Spaces in the EU
    • Interoperability of Data Spaces under the Data Act
    • Data access and use for researchers and Research Performing Organisations under the Data Act
    • FAIR management of data under the Open Data Directive
    • Reuse of publicly funded research under the Digital Governance Act
    • Transparency of GPAI training datasets under the AI Act and exceptions for free and open source models

Flexible duration:

  • It is recommended to adapt the duration of the module to the group and the plan for the discussion during the live session.

Recommended pre-session activity and recap:

  • In preparation for the live session, learners are expected to follow the online course to gain a basic understanding of the concepts covered in this module. These include:
    • Applicable regimes: from a researcher's perspective, for personal data the key issue is privacy law including the GDPR; for non-personal data, it is mainly copyright.
    • In the EU, works are closed by default – it is safe to assume they must be either licensed, public domain, or under a limitation/exception to be reused.
    • Irrespective, sui generis protection of databases applies when databases meet the criteria of originality or a substantial investment was made in the obtaining, verification or presentation of the database (in some cases leading to overlapping protection). Exception: databases created by means of sensors or other physical components of connected products and other machine-generated data which are governed by the Data Act. Note: for the "new" data legislative framework there is much less guidance when it comes to practical application than for GDPR or copyright aspects.
    • Territoriality of copyright: Copyright is territorial and fragmented in the EU – not benefiting from full harmonisation.
    • Direct applicability: Digital regulation like the Data Act or the Digital Governance Act benefits from direct applicability – fragmentation is much less of an issue.

Discussion activity:

  • The live session of the module should be used to facilitate a discussion that will prompt the learners to critically assess the content covered in the pre-requisite.
  • Before opening the main discussion during the live session, it is recommended to start by asking learners to establish individual relevance by providing practical examples from their professional context -- this can also give the instructor an opportunity to get a feeling of how understandable the self-paced part has been.

Resources

Pre-session activity:

  1. Skills4EOSC Evidence-Informed Decision-Making Train of Trainers Course 2: Module07 - Lecture01 -- Open Science and Non-Personal Data, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t0VdCRlnNy8.

Recommended supplementary reading:

  1. Drążewski, Kasper, et al. D3.7 - Coordinated Set of Guides, Fact-Sheets and FAQs on ELSI Aspects for Civil Servants and Policy Makers. Aug. 2024. DOI.org (Datacite), https://doi.org/10.5281/ZENODO.13467302.
  2. Main challenges and opportunities for research under the EU data and digital legislation (in) European Commission: Directorate-General for Research and Innovation, Improving access to and reuse of research results, publications and data for scientific purposes -- Study to evaluate the effects of the EU copyright framework on research and the effects of potential interventions and to identify and present relevant provisions for research in EU data and digital legislation, with a focus on rights and obligations, Publications Office of the European Union, 2024, pp. 358-370, https://data.europa.eu/doi/10.2777/633395.

Optional reading:

  1. European Commission: Joint Research Centre, Farrell, E., Minghini, M., Kotsev, A., Soler-Garrido, J. et al., European data spaces -- Scientific insights into data sharing and utilisation at scale, Publications Office of the European Union, 2023, https://data.europa.eu/doi/10.2760/400188.
  2. European Commission: Directorate-General for Research and Innovation, Open science and intellectual property rights -- How can they better interact? -- State of the art and reflections -- Executive summary, Publications Office of the European Union, 2022, https://data.europa.eu/doi/10.2777/347305.
  3. Lakomý, M., Hlavová, R. & Machackova, H. Open Science and the Science-Society Relationship. Soc 56, 246--255 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12115-019-00361-w.
  4. European Union, Data Europa Academy 'How to use open data for your research'; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=la8RNawqpC4.