LibGuides: Text and Data Mining: Issues to consider

Copyright

There is not currently an exception in the Copyright Act (1968) for data and text mining. Any data and text mining that involves copying, digitising or the reformatting of copyrighted material without permission may be a copyright infringement.

Fair dealing exceptions may provide some scope for text mining, in doing so a 'reasonable portion' of the work/s is the extent. An entire data set would not be a 'reasonable portion'.

Copyright and the Digital Economy (DP 79)
The Australian Law Reform Commission Discussion Paper "Copyright and the Digital Economy (DP 79)" provides consideration of text and data mining.

Ethics

ANU staff and students must ensure that they abide by the terms of use of all data they access and respect the copyright and moral rights of the works used.

ANU Research Ethics Team
The Ethics Team supports the University's legislated requirements to ethical consideration of research proposals and activities.

Licencing

Publishers and providers of data often provide their own license agreements that specify the terms of use of the material. The extent of what is allowed for data and text mining, the tools to mine and the allowable outputs are often included, Note that licenses conditions related to data and text mining will vary from publisher to publisher. It is essential that ANU staff and students comply with any licensing terms and conditions.

Publisher resources, including links to the data and text mining policies of selected publishers are provided in the Publisher resources tab.