On 20 September 2024, an amendment to the Polish Act on Copyright and Related Rights (ACRR) entered into force, which implemented the Directive on Copyright and Related Rights in the Digital Single Market (DSM) with a 3-years’ delay. One of the areas of changes is the permitted use in the scope of text and data mining: Text and Data Mining - TDM (Articles 6(1)(22), Articles 262, 263 ACRR).

According to ACRR, TDM is the analysis of digital texts and data exclusively with the use of an automated technique in order to generate specific information, such as patterns, trends and correlations. Such techniques include, for example, artificial intelligence systems that learn by analysing digital content or natural language processing tools.

Permitted use in the scope of TDM consists of two parts. The first one refers to cultural heritage institutions and some entities in the Higher Education and Science (e.g. universities). For the private sector, the second area is of key importance. Indeed, it is possible to reproduce all works already distributed (e.g. texts on news portals) for TDM purposes, regardless of the type of work or the rightholder. However, the law introduces two restrictions in this scope:

  1. any entity authorised to hold economic copyrights in a work may express an objection against TDM;
  2. reproduced works cannot be retained forever, but only for such a period as necessary to achieve the TDM objective (certainly until their analysis is completed).

Recommendations or industry standards have not yet been developed in the scope of expressing a claim against TDM. The Polish act of law only provides that such a claim should be:

  1.  clear,
  2. adequate to the way of making available the work subject to the claim,
  3. in machine-readable format (in accordance with the Act on Open Data and Re-use of Public Sector Information) including metadata not further described for works made available to the public so that anyone can access them at a place and time selected by them.

All conditions must be met jointly if they apply to the specific case.

Permitted use in the scope of TDM is an unquestionable business opportunity (not only for AI). It allows for the use of Internet resources to acquire knowledge, develop new tools or improve existing ones. However, attention should be paid to the possibility of a disclaimer excluding TDM for a particular work. Future recommendations or standards in this area should be expected which will help in designing appropriate solutions to verify the existence of a claim.