<div dir="ltr"><div><div>Julia Reda, MEP, who has been fighting for years for copyright liberalisation has a hugely gloomy comment ("Open Access Down the Drain") on the recent deliberations of CULT and ITRE:<br><br><a href="https://juliareda.eu/2017/07/a-loss-for-culture-and-research/">https://juliareda.eu/2017/07/a-loss-for-culture-and-research/</a><br><br>>>><br><br>The Committee for Culture and Education (CULT) and the Committee for Industry, Research and Energy (ITRE) ceirtainly didn’t prioritize culture, education or research in today’s copyright votes.<br><br>Open access down the drain<br><br>Both votes were in favour of the extra copyright for news publishers creating charges for the use of snippets and links.<br><br><br><br>Incredibly, the ITRE committee – responsible for research and usually a staunch defender of open access – even voted to extend the extra copyright to academic publications, which would make open access publishing virtually impossible. It would stop people from linking to academic content, despite the content itself being free. This would apply to both online publications and print journals. The chilling effects on the spread of academic works and information would be substantial.<br><br><<<<br><br></div>Julia is not given to sensationalism so this sounds very serious. <br><br></div>Personally I see increasing restrictions on the re-use of public knowledge and think we are facing a potentially bleak future. I am currently writing blog posts on why Text and Data Mining in UK has been complete failure:<br><a href="https://blogs.ch.cam.ac.uk/pmr/2017/07/11/text-and-data-mining-overview/">https://blogs.ch.cam.ac.uk/pmr/2017/07/11/text-and-data-mining-overview/</a> and subsequent.I shalle writing several blogs over the next few days.<br clear="all"><div><div><div><div><br>-- <br><div class="gmail_signature"><div dir="ltr"><div>Peter Murray-Rust<br>Reader Emeritus in Molecular Informatics<br>Unilever Centre, Dept. Of Chemistry<br>University of Cambridge<br>CB2 1EW, UK<br>+44-1223-763069</div></div></div>
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