Copyright Exceptions for Text and Data Mining: A Case of Specificity (Certainty) and Generality (Flexibility)

In recent years, the legitimacy of the activity known as “text and data mining” (TDM) in copyright law has generated a fair bit of debate: to what extent should this activity, which is particularly crucial to the research community, be permitted by a copyright exception/limitation? The response to this question varies from jurisdiction to jurisdiction. Some prefer to enact a specific exception with defined boundaries demarcating what is permitted TDM from what is not (e.g. the EU) whilst others prefer to leave this question to be determined by a general fair use exception (e.g. the US). The advantage of one approach over the other is obvious: certainty versus flexibility. In the case of Singapore, its navigation between these two values resulted in a hybrid approach: its new Copyright Act 2021 deals with TDM via a specific exception and the general fair use exception. This chapter compares and contrasts between these different approaches and provides some background to the Singapore model.