Õiguslikud väljakutsed ja võimalikud lahendused keeleressursside arendamisel
LEGAL CHALLENGES AND POSSIBLE SOLUTIONS IN DEVELOPING LANGUAGE RESOURCES

Summary/Abstract: The development of language resources entails a number of legal challenges in both private (copyright) and public law (constitutional rights, personal data protection, privacy). The topic is motivated by practical issues. In creating language resources and sharing them through international research frameworks, there is a pressing need for raised awareness of the challenges as well as solutions based on current legislation or, in their absence, theoretical and practical analysis and proposals for updated legislation. A central issue in developing language resources is copyright. Although copyrighted works or parts thereof are used in language resources, this differs from their normal use. The works are only used to analyse language and compile various language descriptions to serve as input for language technology, while their creative and expressive purposes are irrelevant. While the current system of copyright law does not specifically regulate language resources, their development is still possible to a certain degree. In addition to explicit contracts, applicable solutions include citing and the research exception. It is still always necessary to observe the three-step test and to assess the risks of free use. In the long-term perspective, it may be necessary to establish an additional basis for free use that would facilitate the creation and sharing of language resources. Resources of spoken language and especially spontaneous language usage bring about the additional issues of personal data protection and privacy. To gather and process samples of spoken language legally, permission from the subject is needed. For spontaneous speech, a prerequisite is that the subject is unaware of being recorded – in that case, permission must be sought immediately after completing the recording. In both cases, subjects need to understand how and why their speech will be used. Rights of other persons must be respected and protected during the whole process of creating language resources.

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