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ARL Joins Hague Declaration for Changes to Intellectual Property Law, Equal Access to Knowledge

ARL – “More than 50 organizations around the world—including ARL—have signed the Hague Declaration on Knowledge Discovery in the Digital Age, which calls for immediate changes to intellectual property (IP) law and the removal of other barriers preventing widened and more equal access to data. Improved treatments for diseases, answers to global issues such as climate change, and billions in government savings are among the potential benefits to be gained, if the principles outlined in the Hague Declaration are adopted by governments, businesses, and society. The declaration asserts that copyright was never designed to regulate the sharing of facts, data, and ideas—nor should it. The right to receive and impart information and ideas is guaranteed by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights but the modern application of IP law often limits this right, even when these most simple building blocks of knowledge are used. “The rapidly changing digital environment, increased computing power, and the sheer quantity of data being produced make it essential for researchers and society to be able to use modern techniques and tools to help them make new discoveries. Research practices could be revolutionized and lives could literally be saved, if we can achieve better access to the knowledge contained within big data,” said Kristiina Hormia-Poutanen, president of LIBER, the Association of European Research Libraries, which has led work to develop the declaration. A new approach to knowledge discovery is critical at a time when society is facing a literal data deluge. The digital universe, or the data we create and copy annually, is doubling in size every two years and is expected to reach 44 trillion gigabytes by 2020. In addition to clarity around the scope of IP law, a skills gap and a lack of infrastructure must also be addressed if computers are to be better employed to extract and recombine data in order to identify patterns and trends. This process, known as content mining, is widely recognized as the only way to deal effectively with big data…”

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