AIMS

Copyright, Data & Licensing (ANDS Research Data Rights Management Guides)

In September 2018, Australian National Data Service (ADNS) released some guidance on LICENSING for DATA. This new guide includes three flowcharts for data rightsholders, data users and data suppliers.

In particular, this comprehensive Guide provides information relevant to data owners, users and suppliers. 

It includes flowcharts to guide decision making about data licensing and data reuse.  The Guide covers:

  • Copyright basics
  • Copyright and data
  • Who owns your data?
  • Rights management for data you own or create
  • Choosing a licence & Creative Commons
  • Considerations for data you reuse
  • Complying with licence permissions
  • Considerations for data supplied through a facility
  • Support for licensing in data facilities

* A recorded webinar introducing this guide: the recording, slides and transcript

Key messages:

  • A dataset may attract copyright protection if it meets certain threshold criteria. On that basis, significant quantities of research data will attract copyright protection.
  • Since the output of most research is intended for reuse, it is recommended that a licence, such as a

    Creative Commons Attribution licence, be applied to make that intention explicit.

  • Should the data not meet the threshold criteria for copyright, no harm will arise from the application of a Creative Commons Licence. It will still serve as a way to make known how you would like to be attributed, in addition to applying a limitation of liability and warranty clause to the data

Copyright is the legal principle which says that someone can own the expression of an idea:  the expression is 'intellectual property'.  Someone who holds the copyright for a work has a legal right to restrict the distribution of the work in certain ways.  Specific details depend on where and when the work was created, and other factors. An owner grants a license to give a licensee permission to use the owner's property in some way. 

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