In short. A Dutch author or successor in title can expressly and appropriately reserve mining rights under Article 15o, while the Article 15n research exception remains available.
Definition: Text and data mining is automated analysis of digital text and data to generate information, including patterns and correlations. Under Auteurswet Article 15o, a Dutch author or successor in title can reserve copyright expressly and appropriately against copying for text and data mining, including through machine-readable means for online works.
Key facts
- In the consolidation effective from 1 January 2026, Auteurswet Article 15o(1) makes the general mining exception conditional on lawful access and the absence of an express, appropriate reservation.
- Recital 18 of Directive (EU) 2019/790 says reservations for content publicly available online should use machine-readable means, including metadata and website or service terms.
- The Dutch government's parliamentary answers of 16 November 2023, answer 4, explain that lawful access can include paid access to news articles behind a paywall.
What does lawful access mean for a website?
Lawful access and a rights reservation are separate conditions. Article 15o(1) permits qualifying mining reproductions where the miner has lawful access and the author or successor in title has made no express, appropriate reservation. Article 15o(2) allows those reproductions to be kept for as long as necessary for text and data mining.
In answer 4 to the parliamentary questions, the government explains that paying for access to paywalled articles can satisfy the access condition. A news publisher can expressly reserve mining rights and draw subscribers' attention to that reservation when granting access. The same answer identifies article metadata as another place for the reservation.
How can the reservation be expressed online?
Directive (EU) 2019/790, Article 4(3), requires an express reservation in an appropriate manner. Recital 18 specifies machine-readable means for publicly available online content. It also says other uses should remain unaffected by a mining reservation. For other situations, it identifies contractual agreements and unilateral declarations as possible means of reservation.
A technical example is the TDM Reservation Protocol, a format for expressing mining reservations on web resources. Its Final Community Group Report of 10 May 2024 defines this HTTP response header:
tdm-reservation: 1
Within that protocol, the value 1 means mining rights are reserved. The header can accompany the response to a GET or HEAD request. For an HTML page, the report also provides a reservation in the document head:
<meta name="tdm-reservation" content="1">
The optional tdm-policy property points to a policy describing licensing conditions. The report is a Community Group specification outside the W3C Standards Track.
Does the reservation also cover scientific research?
Article 15n of the Auteurswet separately permits reproductions by research organisations and cultural heritage institutions for scientific research mining of works to which they have lawful access. Copies require an appropriate level of protection and may be retained for scientific research purposes. Article 15n(4) prevents contractual derogation from that article.
Article 15o expressly preserves Article 15n. At EU level, Directive (EU) 2019/790, Article 4(4), likewise preserves the scientific research exception in Article 3. A general mining reservation therefore leaves that separate exception available when its conditions are met.
Related terms
FAQ
Does a paywall alone reserve mining rights?
A paywall and a mining reservation serve separate functions. The Dutch government's answer 4 explains that a paying user can have lawful access, while an express reservation remains a separate condition.
How long can a miner keep copies under Article 15o?
Article 15o(2) allows copies made under the general exception to be retained for as long as necessary for text and data mining.
Can I use page metadata to express the protocol signal?
Yes. The TDM Reservation Protocol report specifies a meta element named tdm-reservation with content 1 to express reserved mining rights in HTML.
Sources
- Overheid.nl, "Auteurswet", consolidation effective 1 January 2026
- European Parliament and Council, "Directive (EU) 2019/790", 17 April 2019
- Tweede Kamer, "Kamervragen (Aanhangsel) 2023-2024, nr. 412", 16 November 2023
- W3C Text and Data Mining Reservation Protocol Community Group, "TDM Reservation Protocol (TDMRep)", 10 May 2024
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