The document addresses the legal complexities of licensing research data for reuse, focusing on issues such as ownership, copyright, and the legal interoperability of data. It outlines the licensing process, challenges related to data restrictions, and policy concerns, emphasizing the importance of transparency and scholarly impact. The discussion includes guidance on selecting appropriate licenses and the implications of various data agreements and laws.

1. Licensing
Research Data
for Reuse
Rachael G. Samberg, JD, MLIS

2. Framing
Problems
Legal interoperability of
research data:
Principles and
implementation
guidelines.
RDA-CODATA, 2016
An individual researcher may produce original data,
but the rights are controlled by the employing
institution.
A researcher may combine many data sources, but one
or more of those data sources have restrictions placed
on them…and make the derivative dataset subject to
the restrictions of the most restrictive data source.

3. We’ll Discuss
▪ Do we own our data? Can we share it?
▪ What can we use & publish from other people?
▪ How do we license our data for use by others?
▪ A workflow for answering these questions

4. Data Publishing vs.
Data Licensing

5. Data
Publishing

6. Data
Licensing

7. “ Can’t I just cite data I’m using,
or can’t someone just cite
mine?

8. Attribution License
Dan4thNicholas, CC-BY, https://flic.kr/p/8PEZiG Sakaki0214, CC-BY-NC-ND, https://flic.kr/p/9jykF1

9. Why do we license?

10. ▪ Funder mandates
▪ Transparency & reproducibility
▪ Increase scholarly impact
▪ Downstream innovation
▪ Support the commons

11. The Licensing Workflow
1 2 3
What do
we own?
Where
are we?
Other policy
concerns
4
Choose one
(if you can)

12. 1. What do we own?
1

13. 1a. Copyright

14. Exclusive rights to make certain uses
for limited period of time
What is copyright?

15. Reward of
Exclusive Rights
▪ Reproduction
▪ Derivative works
▪ Distribution
▪ Public performance
▪ Public display

16. …for limited
periods of time
Varies, but at least author’s life + 70 years
Within “protected” period,
author’s permission needed to
reproduce, display, perform, etc.

17. A Few Other © Prerequisites
Protects expressions,
not ideas or facts
Must be original,
authored, and fixed
By Rachael G. Samberg
74.3 × 94.3 cm

18. Works in Public Domain
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/
File:Britannica_Shakespeare_Droeshout_Engraving.jpg
Works whose © has expiredWorks by U.S. Federal gov’t
USGS, Brook Trout Occurrence in Acadia National Park

19. Limitations on
Copyright
▪ Statutory exemptions
▫ Allow you to undertake exclusive rights
▸ without obtaining permission
▸ without payment of license fee

20. Statutory Exemption: Fair Use
1. Purpose & character of use
(commercial purposes less likely fair than
nonprofit educational; whether use is
“transformative” often dominates)
2. Nature of copyrighted work
(more likely fair if you’re using factual/
scholarly work)
3. Amount and substantiality
(size & importance of portion used in
relation to whole)
4. Effect on potential market
(less likely fair if use is substitute for
purchasing original)By Rachael G. Samberg

21. How copyright plays out for data
▪ Facts vs. compilations of facts
▪ Quantitative vs. qualitative data
▪ (Thin) layers of protection for databases
▫ Expressive data
▫ Organizational structures
▫ Descriptive metadata

22. 1b. What
agreements have we
entered into?

23. Role at institution
Students vs. faculty vs. staff
Employment agreements / works for hire
Sponsored projects / grants

24. University of
California

25. Source of Data
Website or repository terms of use
Database license agreement signed by institution
Permission from other researchers

26. PubMed Central

27. 2. Where are we?
2

28. “Sui generis” database rights
EU and S. Korea
▫ Property right rewarding effort in obtaining data
▫ Non-commercial exception
▫ An EU/SK-created database, used in EU/SK

29. 3. Other policy concerns
3

30. 3a.
Personal Privacy
& Confidential
Information

31. 3b.
Endangered
Species
By Ikiwaner - Own work, GFDL 1.2, https://
commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?
curid=8132599

32. 3c. Traditional
Knowledge &
Cultural Resources
http://www.bananaip.com/wp-content/uploads/
2014/10/ayurveda1-2.jpg

33. 3d. Embargoes

34. 4. Choosing Licenses
4

35. CC0
(Waiver)
Public Domain
(Label)
CC-BY
(License)
Use Standard Licenses
Open Data Commons
Creative Commons

36. Choosing Tips
▪ Avoid ambiguity
or if you can
can cause confusion
▪ Remember attribution vs. license distinction
Scholarly norms suggest attribution, so you’re not
“losing out” by going with CC0 instead

37. Sample Repository Terms
▪ DataONE Dash =
released to public domain under CC waiver (CC0)
▪ UC Dash = released under CC attribution license (CC-By)

38. Exercise
http://bit.ly/LRD0803

39. Thanks!
!!
More
http://www.lib.berkeley.edu/scholarly-communication/
publishing/lifecycle/your-data

40. Sources
BioMed Central (2016). Policies – Open Data. Available at https://www.biomedcentral.com/about/policies/open-data.
Briney, K., Goben, A., & Zilinski, L. (2015) Do you have an institutional data policy? A review of the current landscape of library
data services and institutional data policies. Journal of Librarianship and Scholarly Communication, 3(2), eP1232,
http://dx.doi.org/10.7710/2162-3309.1232.
Carroll, M.W. (2015). Sharing research data and intellectual property law: A primer. PLOS Biol, 13(8): e1002235. doi: 10.1371/
journal.pbiol.1002235.
Fortney, K. (2016, Sep 8). Who ‘owns’ your data? Office of Scholarly Communication Blog, available at
http://osc.universityofcalifornia.edu/2016/09/who-owns-your-data/.
Fortney, K. (2016, Sep 15). CC By & data: Not always a good fit. Office of Scholarly Communication Blog, available at
http://osc.universityofcalifornia.edu/2016/09/who-owns-your-data/.
Levine, M. (2014). Copyright, open data, and the availability-usability gap, in Research Data Management: Practical Strategies for
Information Professionals (J.M. Ray, ed.), Purdue, In.: Purdue University Press.
Nimmer et al. (2015). Nimmer on Copyright, 8-4, Section 102.
Open Data Commons (n.d.) Public domain dedication and license. Available at https://opendatacommons.org/licenses/pddl/
Open Knowledge Foundation (n.d.) Why open data? Available at https://okfn.org/opendata/why-open-data/.
RDA-CODATA Legal Interoperability Interest Group (2016 Oct 20). Legal interoperability of research data: Principles and
implementation guidelines. Available at https://zenodo.org/record/162241#.WBNkluErKL8
Smith M. (2014). Data governance: Where technology and policy collide, in Research Data Management: Practical Strategies for
Information Professionals (J.M. Ray, ed.), Purdue, In.: Purdue University Press.