FutureTDM is Mapping the Legal Barriers to TDM in Europe

The goal of FutureTDM is to promote uptake of the use of TDM in Europe. Part of the solution therefore lies in identifying barriers existing to the use and uptake of TDM in the EU. Among these are legal barriers: those which restrict the use of TDM by making TDM activities unlawful under certain circumstances, even though miners do have legitimate access to the contents to, for example, read or view them. We are therefore now in the stage of mapping the laws and regulation in the EU that restrict TDM activities. The three main fields of law that we focus on are: intellectual property laws, data protection laws and licensing.

For this purpose, it is necessary to collect a wide variety of regulations in those fields. We have therefore sent out a questionnaire among our network of contacts in Member States who possess the appropriate legal expertise to provide us insight into how the regulations in their respective countries affect TDM. We do not only focus on legal ‘barriers’, but we are also very curious about any provisions that promote TDM and might serve as an inspiration for good policy making.

We would like to already lift the veil of some preliminary findings. As of now, it seems that the biggest hurdles to overcome can be split into three categories: restrictiveness, fragmentation and uncertainty.