Context and problem statement

Art. 4 of the EU 2019 Directive for Copyright in the Digital Single Market (DSM Directive) governs text and data mining (TDM) for commercial purposes. It uses a broad definition of TDM that can be interpreted in a way that is relevant in the context of AI technology. This requires rightsholders to express clearly what usages are (and are not) possible with their content.

Robust human- and machine-readable policy indicators are needed to ensure that commercial content collectors and processes can recognize that some or all of the content they have lawful access to (via subscription or open access) may be protected. 

About the ‘Article 4’ Task & Finish Group

The  ‘Article 4’ Task & Finish Group is a technically oriented group that has  developed recommendations for the STM membership on common and consistent ways to implement the DSM’s Article 4 requirements so as to ensure  that content is protected from unwanted commercial use for Text and Data Mining (TDM) purposes, as described in the legislation. The group builds on the work done on the TDMrep protocol in the context of the W3C community group.