[BOAI] Press Release: Addressing legal barriers in sharing of research data

[Peter Suber]

[Forwarding from Knowledge Exchange.  --Peter Suber.]


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PRESS RELEASE
21 October 2011
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*Addressing legal barriers in sharing of research data*


It is difficult for researchers and those supporting them to understand how
open access to research data can be legally obtained and re-used. This is
due to the fact that European and national laws vary and researchers work
across national boundaries. A possible approach to providing clarity would
be that researchers assign a licence to their data. This practice could be
incorporated in a code of conduct for researchers.****


This is one of the recommendations from the report ‘The legal status of
research data in the Knowledge Exchange partner countries’ which was
commissioned by Knowledge Exchange (KE) and written by the Centre for
Intellectual Property Law (CIER). The aim of the report was to provide
clarity by analysing the intellectual property regimes in the four KE
countries and European database law. Moreover, the report provides three
recommendations to achieve better access: making contractual arrangements
with authors, harmonisation of European copyright law and setting up of
policies on commercial interests.



*Licence for re-use to be included in code of conduct*

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On 9 September the findings of the report were discussed in Brussels with
national legal experts and representatives from the European Commission. In
the discussion a waiver or licence for researchers was considered to be most
likely to be adopted. This could also be incorporated in a code of conduct
for researchers. The discussion revealed that joint publicly and privately
funded research poses a complex challenge as this requires balancing the
interests of public funding and those of private companies. Harmonisation of
copyright law was considered a very complex matter and not feasible in the
short term.


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The full report and the four national reports are available at:****

http://www.knowledge-exchange.info/Default.aspx?ID=461****

A report on the seminar is available at:****

http://www.knowledge-exchange.info/Default.aspx?ID=455****

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 Best regards,****

Keith****

*Keith Russell*
Knowledge Exchange Coordinator | www.knowledge-exchange.info |
kru at knowledge-exchange.info | Danish Agency for Libraries and Media | H.C.
Andersens Boulevard 2, 5th floor | DK-1553 Copenhagen V | Denmark | T +31
(0)30 234 66 99 | F +31 (0)30 233 29 60 |

[image: cid:image001.jpg at 01CBC771.1C315CA0] ****

Knowledge Exchange is a co-operative effort of DEFF (Denmark), DFG
(Germany), JISC (United Kingdom) and SURFfoundation (The Netherlands)****

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