Legal protection and access in the information life cycle

Overview:

Intellecutal Property rights may pose a serious restriction on the use, re-use and access to information. The paper will present the exact scope of IPR rights in different phases of the information life cycle, from the crewation or recording, through value-adding processes up to the end user, with special emphasis on the research field. Included will be a brief look at access rules under the Public Sector Information Directive (PSI). Moreover, different licensing models will be presented with a view at alleviating the legal restrictions in the direction of open access and free flow or information in a research infrastructure.
The presentation will be based on research work pursued within the EU funded projects Open AIRE Plus I and II carried through by a European research consortium of research institutions directed at establishing an electronic research infrastructure where the author is leading the legal workpackages. Issues in this research included IPR, data protection and PSI rules. Morevoer the author was involved in research on the legal framework applicable to citizen science pursuing the collection, sharing and provision of information in various scientific fields.

Target Audience:

The presentation will be directed at non-lawyers doing research who want lo learn more about the legal framework of information re-use and sharing and ways to alleviate legal problems by using open access licensing.

Benefits for Audience:

This presentation will acquaint the audience with a critical understanding of the key legal issues surrounding data sharing and re-use in a digital environment, with emphasis on IPR and PSI (issues which will become ever more important in the frame of the EOSC). It will foster data sharing and re-use by giving some pragmatic direction and concrete recommendations to stakeholders on what are their legal obligations and how best to negotiate them.

Topic 3: A changing environment, changing research