How to License Research Data

A Digital Curation Centre and JISC Legal ‘working level’ guide How to License Research Data Alex Ball (DCC) Digital Curation Centre, 2014. Licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ 1SQW Consulting & LISU. (2008, September). Open access to research outputs (§3.10). Swindon: Research Councils UK. retrieved from http://www.rcuk.ac.uk/ RCUK-prod/assets/documents/ news/oareport.pdf. 2Examples of journals with such a policy include the American Economic Review, the Journal of Evolutionary Biology, and Clinical Infectious Diseases. 3Stodden, V. (2009). Enabling reproducible research: Open licensing for scientific innovation. International Journal of Communications Law and Policy,13, 1–25. Retrieved from http://www.ijclp.net/files/ ijclp_web-doc_1-13-2009.pdf. 4Open to all? Case studies of openness in research. (2010, September). Research Information Network and National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts. Retrieved from http://www.rin.ac.uk/ system/files/attachments/ NESTA-RIN_Open_Science_V01_0 .pdf. 5Pienta, A. M., Alter, G. C. & Lyle, J. A. (2010, April). The enduring value of social science research: The use and reuse of primary research data. Paper from the Organisation, Economics and Policy of Scientific Research workshop, Torino, Italy. Retrieved from http://hdl.handle .net/2027.42/78307. How to License Research Data Introduction This guide will help you decide how to apply a licence to your research data, and which licence would be most suitable. It should provide you with an awareness of why licensing data is important, the impact licences have on future research, and the potential pitfalls to avoid. It concentrates on the UK context, though some aspects apply internationally; it does not, however, provide legal advice. The guide should interest both the principal investigators and researchers responsible for the data, and those who provide access to them through a data centre, repository or archive. Why license research data? While practice varies from discipline to discipline, there is an increasing trend towards the planned release of research data. The need for data licensing arises directly from such releases, so the first question to ask is why research data should be released at all. A significant number of research funders now require that data produced in the course of the research they fund should be made available for other researchers to discover, examine and build upon. The rationale given by UK funders is that opening up the data allows for new knowledge to be discovered through comparative studies, data mining and so on; it also allows greater scrutiny of how research conclusions have been reached, potentially driving up research quality.1Some journals are taking a similar stance, requiring that authors deposit their supporting data either with the journal itself or with a recognised data repository.2 There are many additional reasons why releasing data can be in a researcher’s interests.3,4 The discipline of working up data for eventual release helps in ensuring that a full and clear record is preserved of how the conclusions were reached from the data, protecting the researcher from potential challenges. A culture of openness deters fraud, encourages learning from mistakes as well as from successes, and breaks down barriers to interdisciplinary and ‘citizen science’ research. The availability of the data, alongside associated tools and protocols, increases the efficiency of research by reducing both data collection costs and the possibility of duplication. It also has the potential to increase the impact of the research, not only academically,5but also economically and socially. Merely releasing data without making clear their terms of use can be somewhat counter-productive, though. The default legal position on how data may be used in any given context is hard to untangle, not least because different jurisdictions apply different standards of creativity, skill, labour and expense when judging whether copyright or similar rights pertain. The situation is 2 6Data. (2012, June 12). Retrieved from Creative Commons website: http://wiki.creativecommons .org/Data. 7Telstra Corporation Limited v Phone Directories Company Pty Ltd [2010] FCAFC 149. Retrieved 10 January 2010, from http://www.austlii. edu.au/au/cases/cth/FCAFC/ 2010/149.html 8Directive 96/9/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 11 March 1996 on the legal protection of databases. (1996, March 27). Official Journal of the European Union,L077, 20–28. Retrieved from http://eur -lex .europa .eu/ LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri= CELEX:31996L0009:EN:HTML. 9Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works. (1979). Retrieved from World Intellectual Property Organization website: http://www.wipo.int/ treaties/en/ip/berne/trtdocs _wo001.html. 10 Fitzgerald, A. & Pappalardo, K. (2009, November 5). Creative Commons and data. Melbourne: Australian National Data Service. Retrieved from http://ands.org .au/guides/cc-and-data.html. ‘An intellectual property (IP) licence is effectively a promise not to sue for infringement of an intellectual property right (IPR).’ – Irish, V. (2005). IEE Management of Technology: No. 22. Intellectual property rights for engineers (2nd ed., p. 173). London: Institution of Electrical Engineers complicated by the fact that different aspects of a database – field values (i.e. the data themselves), field names, the structure and data model for the database, data entry interfaces, visualisations and reports derived from the data – may be treated quite differently.6 In the US, there is a strong emphasis on creativity, so straightforward tables of, say, sensor data are unlikely to attract copyright. In Australia, creativity is not relevant but originality is. Originality is judged on a range of factors, including skill and labour, but the skill and labour have to relate directly to the work in question: the effort spent compiling a database does not necessarily affect the originality of a report generated from it.7Within the EU, the act of compiling a database attracts copyright insofar as the compiler has exercised intellectual judgement in selecting or arranging the data.8There is also a separate database right that applies to the contents of a database where a substantial investment was made to obtain, verify or present them. The thrust of the database right is that users may not extract or reuse more than an insubstantial part of the contents without authorisation from the compiler, unless certain exemptions apply. One of the exemptions is for teaching and scientific research, but as the EU Database Directive does not commit Member States to respecting it, it may not apply in all European countries. Indeed, another potential source of confusion are the variations between jurisdictions in what can be done with copyright material. While the Berne Convention9provides a level of consistency among its signatories – which includes most but by no means all countries – there are still variations in the exemptions that each jurisdiction provides, and subtle differences concerning, for example, which acts count as copying, and what constitutes an insubstantial use or extract of a work. The latter is an important point because the exemptions to copyright and database rights permit a dataset to be compiled from insubstantial extracts from a number of other datasets,10 but the fact of whether the extracts are indeed insubstantial might be contested. With all these complexities and ambiguities surrounding the rights of database compilers, reusers need clear guidance from compilers on what they are allowed to do with the data. Licensing concepts The two most effective ways of communicating permissions to potential reusers of data are licences and waivers. A licence in this context is a legal instrument for a rights holder to permit a second party to do things that would otherwise infringe on the rights held. The first thing to note is that only the rights holder (or someone with a right or licence to act on their behalf) can grant a licence; it is therefore imperative that the intellectual property rights (IPR) pertaining to the data are established before any licensing takes place. The second thing to note is that while it is the nature of a licence to expand rather than restrict what a licensee can do, some licences are presented within contracts, and contracts can place additional restrictions on the licensee and indeed the licensor. 3 01 00 1 0 1 1 1 0 1 0 0 1 1 1 1 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 1 1 0 0 01 01 11 01 00 11 10 10 10 00 11 10 10 00 1 1 1 0 0 1 0 1 1 1 0 1 1 1 0 1 1 1 1 1 0 1 0 0 0 0 1 1 0 0 1 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 1 0 1 1 1 0 0 0 0 1 1 0 1 0 0 1 0 0 0 1 1 1 1 1 0 1 0 1 1 1 1 1 0 1 1 1 1 1 1 0 0 0 0 1 1 0 1 0 1 0 1 0 1 1 1 1 0 0 1 0 1 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 1 1 0 0 1 1 1 1 0 0 0 0 1 1 1 0 0 0 0 1 1 0 1 1 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 1 0 1 0 1 0 0 1 1 0 1 1 0 0 1 1 0 1 1 1 0 0 11 Protocol for Implementing Open Access Data (§5.3). (2007, December 20). Retrieved from Science Commons website: http: //sciencecommons.org/projects/ publishing/open-access-data -protocol/. 12 OCLC, for example, builds flexibility into its use of the ODC-By licence by allowing ‘in circumstances where providing the full attribution statement . . . is not technically feasible, the use of canonical [dataset] URIs is adequate . . . ’ alongside examples of acceptable practice (Data licenses and attribution. [n.d.]. Retrieved from OCLC Website: http://www .oclc .org/data/ attribution.en.html ). 13 For example, the GNU Project maintains a list of licences for code which permit redistribution under the GNU General Public Licence (GPL) and whose terms the GPL can accommodate (Various Licenses and Comments about Them. [2010, August 9]. Retrieved from GNU website: http://www.gnu.org/ licenses/license-list.html ). Creative Commons maintains lists of licences into which its Share Alike licences may be converted by derived works, but these are currently empty (Compatible Licenses. [n.d.]. Retrieved from Creative Commons Website: https://creativecommons.org/ compatiblelicenses ). 14 Netpop Research. (2009, September). Defining ‘Noncommercial’: A study of how the online population understands ‘Noncommercial Use’. San Francisco, CA: Creative Commons. Retrieved from http://wiki.creativecommons .org/Defining_Noncommercial. A waiver, by contrast, is a legal instrument for giving up one’s rights to a resource, so that infringement becomes a non-issue. Again, only the entity that holds the rights (or someone with a right or licence to act on their behalf) can waive them. Note that a waiver does not authorise other parties to claim rights – as opposed to freedoms – they did not previously have. Common terms Licences typically grant permissions on condition that certain terms are met. While the precise details vary, three conditions commonly found in licences are attribution, copyleft, and non-commerciality. •An attribution requirement means that the licensor must be given due credit for the work when it is distributed, displayed, performed, or used to derive a new work. •Acopyleft requirement means that any new works derived from the licensed one must be released under the same license, and only that licence. •The intent of a non-commercial licence is to prevent the licensee from exploiting the work commercially. Such licences are often used as part of a dual-licensing regime (see ‘Multiple licensing’, below), where the alternative licence allows commercial uses but requires payment to the licensor. While these all have their uses, they can cause problems in the context of datasets. Datasets are particularly prone to attribution stacking, where a derivative work must acknowledge all contributors to each work from which it is derived, no matter how distantly. If a dataset is at the end of a long chain of derivations, or if large teams of contributors were involved, the list of credits might well be considered too unwieldy.11 The problem is magnified if different sets of contributors have to be credited in a different way, especially if automated methods are used to assemble the dataset – some of the benefits of automation are lost if attribution conditions have to be inspected manually. Some licenses and licensors tackle this problem by specifying lightweight attribution mechanisms.12 The problem with copyleft licences is they prevent the licensed data being combined with data released under a different copyleft licence: the derived dataset would not be able to satisfy both sets of licence terms simultaneously. Some copyleft licences, however, demonstrate a small amount of flexibility in allowing derivative works to be released under a compatible licence, that is, one that applies approximately the same conditions.13 Non-commercial licences may have wider implications than intended due to the ambiguity of what constitutes a commercial use.14 Depending on one’s interpretation, it may or may not preclude the data being used in support of works for which an author is given recompense (such as textbooks), and might preclude the data being used in support of works that are sold (such as journal articles) even if the author does not benefit financially. 4 15 Rothamsted Research Website, URL:http://www.rothamsted.ac .uk/. 16 Multinational Brassica Genome Project Website, URL:http://www .brassica.info/. 17 Licence Agreement. (2013, December 16). Retrieved from UK Data Service website: http: //ukdataservice.ac.uk/media/ 28102/licenceform.pdf. 18 Terms and Conditions of Access. (2014, April 9). Retrieved from UK Data Service website: http: //www.esds.ac.uk/orderingData/ termsandconditions.asp. 19 ADS deposit licence, UR L:http: //www.ahds.ac.uk/documents/ ahds-archaeology-licence-form .doc. 20 The Terms of Use and Access to ADS Resources. (n.d.). Retrieved from Archaeology Data Service website: http:// archaeologydataservice.ac.uk/ advice/termsOfUseAndAccess. 21 In the UK, examples of public sector data offered commercially under bespoke licences include those from the Ordnance Survey (http://www.ordnancesurvey.co. uk/business-and-government/ licensing/licences/) and the Hydrographic Office (http://www. ukho.gov.uk/copyright/). Prepared licences Before considering the licensing options that are available, you should first check whether you are obliged or strongly encouraged to use a certain licence as a condition of funding or deposit, or as a matter of local policy. Your department or institution may already have a licence prepared for you to apply to your data. Rothamsted Research, a BBSRC Institute, uses several different legacy licences for its own data, each reflecting both a desire to see the data used in current research, and caution against naïve or simplistic interpretation.15 On the other hand, it also maintains some public domain genome sequences as part of the Multinational Brassica Genome Project.16 Some data centres have licences that depositors must grant as a condition of deposit. Contributors to the UK Data Archive (UKDA) are required to sign a standard licence agreement that clarifies the respective rights and responsibilities of both parties and permits the UKDA to perform its curatorial functions.17 In turn, the UKDA makes the data available under various licences depending on the type of data. Open data may use the Open Government Licence, the Creative Commons BY-SA or BY-NC-SA version 4.0 licences, or the World Bank Terms of Use (see ‘Standard licences’ below). Safeguarded data are made available under one of two bespoke licences: the Special Licence if the data are sensitive, otherwise the End User Licence with or without special (additional) conditions.18 Similarly, researchers depositing data with the Archaeology Data Service (ADS) are required to sign a deposit licence.19 Those using data hosted by the ADS do so under both a brief licence and a common access agreement.20 Both the UKDA and ADS deposit licences are non-exclusive, which means among other things that granting them does not prevent you hosting a copy of the data yourself and distributing it under a different licence if you wish. Bespoke licences Writing a bespoke licence for your data is not a trivial undertaking, and almost certainly unnecessary in the light of the standard licences available (see ‘Standard licences’ below). Furthermore, using a standard licence helps the users of your data as it reduces the number of licences with which they have to work, and aids interoperability and automation as described above. There are circumstances, though, in which it might be worth writing a custom licence: where the data have significant commercial value,21 or where you need to clarify your responsibilities and those of reusers in respect of the data. If you decide to do this, in the first instance you should consult with your organisation’s research office, commercialisation services team and/or legal department. At the very least they will be able to advise you on the implications of including particular clauses or using particular wording in the licence; they may have standard 5 22 AusGOAL Restrictive Licence template, URL:http://www .ausgoal.gov.au/restrictive -licence-template. 23 AusGOAL. (2011, May). Australian Governments Open Access and Licensing Framework. (2011, May). Retrieved from Australian National Data Service website: http: //www .ands .org .au/guides/ ausgoal-awareness.html. 24 AMI Meeting Corpus Website, URL:http://groups.inf.ed.ac .uk/ami/corpus/. 25 The AMI Meeting Corpus License is similar but not identical to the Creative Commons BY-NC-SA 2.0 Licence; URL:http://groups.inf. ed.ac.uk/ami/corpus/license. shtml. ‘Creative Commons has the option to include commercial uses – we use the Non-Commercial one, though, because some contributors don’t want to lose out on what they think more likely revenue (they think companies have money and research groups don’t), and because commercial takers can’t accept the Share Alike terms.’ – Researcher from the AMI Project, University of Edinburgh 26 Creative Commons Website, URL: http://creativecommons.org/. 27 RDF and rights expression languages are discussed under ‘Mechanisms for licensing data’ below. Creative Commons at a glance Good for •very simple, factual datasets •data to be used automatically Watch out for •versions: use v. 4 or later •attribution stacking •the NC condition: only use with dual licensing •the SA condition as it reduces interoperability •the ND condition as it severely restricts reuse texts or templates you could use, or may even offer to write the licence for you. An example of the template approach is the Restrictive Licence (RL)22 that was developed as part of Queensland’s Government Information Licensing Framework (GILF) and later adopted into the Australian Governments Open Access and Licensing Framework (AusGOAL).23 This licence, intended for government information and data, allows licensors to construct their own custom licence by filling out some simple forms. Left unmodified, the licence does not permit the licensee to do anything beyond what is allowed under copyright law, apart from a few provisions with regard to copying and redistribution. By filling out the licence’s schedules, however, one can adjust the copying and distribution permissions, fix the term of the licence, restrict usage geographically, or add specific conditions or permissions. The completed template takes the form of an agreement that both licensor and licensee have to sign, so it cannot be used to give blanket permissions. An example of fully bespoke licences are the ones used by the Augmented Multi-Party Interaction (AMI) Project at the University of Edinburgh.24 The project released its AMI Meeting Corpus under two licences written by the Edinburgh Research and Innovation unit. One was a free, non-commercial, copyleft licence,25 and the other a chargeable commercial licence. This is also an example of a dual licensing arrangement (see ‘Multiple licensing’ below). Standard licences While bespoke licences are useful for catering for very specific circumstances, most research projects would be better served using one of the standard licences. Below is a selection of the standard licences available, along with reasons for and against using each one. Please note that these licences can be terminated only by expiry of the licensor’s IPR or, for a particular licensee, through breach of terms. Creative Commons Creative Commons is a non-profit corporation set up in 2001 for the purpose of producing simple yet robust licences for creative works.26 These licences give the creators of such works finergrained control over how they may be used than simply declaring them public domain or reserving all rights. As well as the legal text, the licences all have quick clear summaries and a canonical URL for use in HTML, RDF and other code. A rights expression language is also provided for use with RDF.27 While originally aimed at works such as music, images and video, Creative Commons licences have been used widely for most forms of original content, including data. There are six main Creative Commons licences. While the spirit behind them has remained constant, the wording of their legal deeds has been revised over time, resulting in different versions, and adapted to different legal jurisdictions, resulting in different ports. 6 00 11 1 1 1 0 0 0 0 1 1 0 1 0 1 0 1 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 1 1 11 00 10 01 01 10 1 1 11 11 10 10 11 01 0 1 0 1 1 1 0 1 0 1 1 1 1 0 0 0 1 1 1 0 1 1 1 1 0 0 0 0 0 1 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 1 1 1 1 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 1 1 1 1 1 0 1 0 0 1 0 0 0 1 1 1 1 0 0 0 1 1 1 0 0 0 0 1 1 0 1 1 0 0 1 1 1 0 1 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 1 1 1 0 1 0 0 0 1 0 0 1 1 1 0 0 0 1 1 1 1 0 1 0 0 1 0 1 0 1 0 1 1 1 0 0 0 1 1 0 0 1 1 1 1 1 1 0 0 1 1 0 1 0 1 28 Frequently Asked Questions (section entitled ‘Does my use violate the NonCommercial clause of the licenses?’). (2014, June 24). Retrieved from Creative Commons wiki: http: //wiki.creativecommons.org/ Frequently_Asked_Questions. 29 The strength of a copyleft clause refers to the range of derivations to which it applies, with weaker clauses applying to a narrower range. For example, giving a software library a weak copyleft licence means that all future versions/modifications of that library inherit the licence, but software that merely depends on that library does not. 30 CC BY, URL:http : / / creativecommons.org/licenses/ by/4.0. 31 CC BY-SA, URL:http:// creativecommons.org/licenses/ by-sa/4.0. 32 CC BY-ND, URL:http:// creativecommons.org/licenses/ by-nd/4.0. 33 CC BY-NC, UR L:http:// creativecommons.org/licenses/ by-nc/4.0. 34 CC BY-NC-SA, URL:http:// creativecommons.org/licenses/ by-nc-sa/4.0. 35 CC BY-NC-ND, URL:http:// creativecommons.org/licenses/ by-nc-nd/4.0. 36 More precisely, the ports of the version 3 licences to European jurisdictions fully waive the sui generis database right, while all other ports and the unported versions fully reserve it. Each licence includes the Attribution bcondition. In the version 3 licences and earlier, it is left up to the licensor to specify the way in which credit is given. Recognising the difficulties this may cause in the context of attribution stacking, the version 4 licences can be satisfied by a link to a Web page containing attribution information, though licensors can specify additional, alternative mechanisms. There are three other conditions that licensors can add, and the various possible combinations produce the six licences. Using just the Attribution condition is known as the CC BY licence. There is a Non-Commercial ncondition, where commercial is defined as ‘primarily intended for or directed toward commercial advantage or monetary compensation’.28 The Share Alike acondition inserts a strong copyleft clause into the licence.29 The version 1 licences are very strict: derivations may only use the exact same version 1 licence. The version 2 licences onwards, however, allow derivations to use a later version or a different port of the same license. Nevertheless, derivations may not use a Creative Commons licence with a different set of conditions. Finally, including the No Derivatives dcondition in the version 3 licences and earlier means that the licensee is forbidden from altering, transforming or building upon the work. The version 4 condition is more flexible: it allows these things for private use, but prevents the licensee from sharing the derivations. It and the Share Alike condition are mutually exclusive. The six permutations are therefore bAttribution (CC BY);30 ba Attribution Share Alike (CC BY-SA);31 bd Attribution No Derivatives (CC BY-ND);32 bn Attribution Non-Commercial (CC BY-NC);33 bna Attribution Non-Commercial Share Alike (CC BY-NCSA);34 bnd Attribution Non-Commercial No Derivatives (CC BY-NCND).35 The versions of the licences prior to version 4 were not specifically aimed at data, so using them for such presents some problems. The most significant is that they do not explicitly cover sui generis database rights such as the one in force in the European Union.36 This means, for example, that use of substantial portions of a database licensed using the unported terms of version 3 or earlier may constitute a rights infringement in such jurisdictions. The version 4 licences, however, do explicitly include sui generis database rights unless the licensor specifically reserves them. All versions of the licences treat datasets and databases as a whole: they do not treat the individual data themselves differently from the collection/database. This might be considered an advantage in terms of simplicity, but means they cannot be used without difficulty in certain complex cases such as collections of variously copyrighted works. Similarly, the licences do not distinguish using data as part of a new collection/database from using them to generate content 7 Example In 2010, OpenStreetMap changed its licence from CC BY-SA 2.0 to ODCODbL 1.0 because ODbL •handled database rights; •enforced copyleft for derived data but not derived maps; •allowed the project to speak for all contributors. 37 Open Data Commons Website, URL:http://opendatacommons .org/. 38 TCL, URL:http://tinyurl .com/p3ag72b. ODC-By at a glance Good for •most databases and datasets •data to be used automatically •data to be used for generating nondata products Watch out for •attribution stacking 39 ODC-By, URL:http : // opendatacommons.org/licenses/ by/. 40 Example notice: ‘Contains information from 〈database〉which is made available under the ODC Attribution License.’ ODC-ODbL at a glance Good for •most databases and datasets •data to be used automatically •data to be used for generating nondata products Watch out for •attribution stacking •the copyleft condition as it reduces interoperability •the DRM clause as it may put off some reusers 41 ODC-ODbL, URL:http:// opendatacommons.org/licenses/ odbl/. 42 Open Government Licence for public sector information, UR L: http://www.nationalarchives .gov.uk/doc/open-government -licence/version/2/. A machine-readable version of the Open Government Licence is available at http:// reference.data.gov.uk/id/open -government-licence. (graphs, models, maps, etc.). This means the Share Alike and No Derivatives conditions might have further reaching consequences than intended. Indeed, the No Derivatives condition would likely disallow most substantive types of reuse, leaving only such cases as checking that data within the set derive from each other as claimed. It should therefore be avoided. In addition to the six main licences, Creative Commons provides tools for entering works into the public domain, or certifying works as already being in the public domain (see ‘Public domain’, below). Open Data Commons The Open Data Commons Project37 was set up in 2007 to develop a successor to the Talis Community Licence (TCL).38 The first licence to be produced was a public domain dedication for databases. The project transferred to the Open Knowledge Foundation in 2009 and has produced two further licences having some of the character of the Creative Commons licences, but designed specifically for databases. All three follow the Creative Commons model of providing a clear summary and canonical URL alongside the full legal text. The Open Data Commons Attribution Licence (ODC-By) allows licensees to copy, distribute and use the database, to produce works from it and to modify, transform and build upon it for any purpose.39 If content is generated from the data, that content should include or accompany a notice explaining that the database was used in its creation.40 If the database is used substantially to create a new database or collection of databases, the licence URL or text and copyright/database right notices must be distributed with the new database or collection. The Open Data Commons Open Database Licence (ODCODbL) is the same as ODC-By but for a couple of additional conditions.41 It adds a copyleft condition that applies to new databases derived from the database (but not collections of databases or non-database content produced directly from it); this condition would be satisfied by future versions of the same licence or a compatible one as judged by the licensor. The other condition is that technological restrictions such as Digital Rights Management (DRM) mechanisms can only be applied to the database or a new database derived from it if an alternative copy without the restrictions is made equally available. Being written in database terms, these licences are suited to a wider range of research data than the Creative Commons equivalents. The ODC-ODbL copyleft condition is also slightly more flexible than Creative Commons’ Share Alike, though the ODC attribution requirement is slightly less flexible. Open/Non-Commercial Government Licence The Open Government Licence (OGL) was released as part of the UK Government Licensing Framework in September 2010; version 2 was released in June 2013.42 It is intended for UK public sector 8 OGL at a glance Good for •UK public sector databases and datasets •data to be used automatically Watch out for •attribution stacking if used with differently licensed data •categories of data that cannot be licensed in this way •ties to the UK legal context 01 01 1 1 0 1 1 0 0 1 1 0 1 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 1 1 0 1 1 1 00 10 10 11 10 1 1 0 1 0 0 0 0 1 1 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 1 1 1 0 1 0 1 1 1 0 0 0 1 1 0 0 0 1 0 1 0 1 1 1 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 1 1 0 0 1 1 1 1 1 1 43 ‘Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v2.0.’ NCGL at a glance Good for •commercially valuable UK public sector databases and datasets •data to be used automatically Watch out for •attribution stacking if used with differently licensed data •restrictions on uses: only use with dual licensing •categories of data that cannot be licensed in this way •ties to the UK legal context 44 Non-Commercial Government Licence for public sector information, URL:http://www .nationalarchives.gov.uk/doc/ non -commercial -government -licence/non -commercial -government-licence.htm. A machine-readable version of the Non-Commercial Government Licence is available at http:// reference .data .gov .uk/id/ non -commercial -government -licence. Public domain at a glance Good for •most databases and datasets •data to be used by anyone or any tool •data to be used for any purpose Watch out for •lack of control over how database is reused •lack of protection against unfair competition and government resources, particularly datasets, source code and collected or original information; that it cannot be used by licensors outside the UK is not directly stated, but is implied by the wording of its exemptions. The terms of the licence are similar to CC BY in that attribution is required, derivative works and commercial uses are explicitly allowed, and there is no copyleft condition. Version 1 of the licence contained some additional conditions; most of them have been removed from version 2, except that derivative works must not be represented as having official status. There are also categories of information for which the licence explicitly does not permit use: •personal information; •unpublished information, other than that disclosed under information access legislation (FoIA, etc.); •public sector logos, armorial bearings, etc. other than as an integral part of a document or dataset; •military insignia; •identity documents; •information subject to patents, trademarks, design rights, third party copyright (unless authorised), etc. The attribution condition is couched in flexible terms so as to mitigate the problem of attribution stacking. In cases of data being drawn together from many different datasets, a simple generic statement will satisfy the licence terms.43 Furthermore, if a derived dataset is released under CC BY version 4 or ODC-By, users complying with that licence’s attribution requirement automatically satisfy those of the OGL. A non-commercial variant was introduced in July 2011,44 where commercial uses are understood to be ‘primarily intended for or directed toward commercial advantage or private monetary compensation’. The current version retains some of the additional conditions from OGL version 1 not present in version 2: •the resource must not be used to mislead others; and •use of the resource must not breach the Data Protection Act 1998 or the Privacy and Electronic Communications (EC Directive) Regulations 2003. Notably, while the licence as a whole is not copyleft, the noncommercial aspect of it is. In other words, it requires that any derivations are released under a non-commercial licence. Public domain The most permissive way of releasing data is under a dedication to the public domain. This is where all copyright interests and database rights are waived, allowing the data to be used as freely as possible. Dedicating a work to the public domain is not as simple as it sounds, which is why Creative Commons and Open Data Commons have produced special tools for the purpose. 9 Further information Three other DCC guides, each by Mags McGinley, cover this topic: Awareness Level: Legal Watch: Creative Commons licensing Awareness Level: Legal Watch: IPR in databases Awareness Level: Legal Watch: Science Commons Barlas, C. (2006, July). Digital Rights Expression Languages (DRELs). London: JISC. Retrieved from http:/ /www .webarchive .org .uk/wayback / archive/20130607115257/http://www.jisc.ac .uk/whatwedo/services/techwatch/reports/ horizonscanning/hs0603.aspx Guibault, L. & Wiebe, A. (Eds.). (2013). Safe to be open: Study on the protection of research data and recommendations for access and usage. Universitätsverlag Göttingen. Retrieved from http://webdoc.sub.gwdg .de/univerlag/2013/legalstudy.pdf Harris, L. E. (2009). Licensing digital content: A practical guide for librarians (2nd ed.). Chicago, IL: American Library Association. Jasserand, C. (2011). Creative Commons licences and design: Are the two compatible? JIPITEC,2, 131–142. Retrieved from http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn: de:0009-29-30856 Korn, N. & Oppenheim, C. (2011, June). Licensing open data: A practical guide. London: HEFCE and JISC. Retrieved from http://discovery.ac.uk/files/pdf/ Licensing_Open_Data_A_Practical_Guide.pdf Korn, N., Oppenheim, C. & Duncan, C. (2007, May). IPR and licensing issues in derived data. London: JISC. Retrieved from http://www.jisc.ac.uk/media/ documents/projects/iprinderiveddatareport .pdf Korn, N., Oppenheim, C. & Picciotto, S. (2007, May). Other types of IPR and their impact on JISC projects. London: JISC. Retrieved from http://www.jisc.ac.uk/ media/documents/projects/othertypesofip.pdf Murray-Rust, P., Neylon, C., Pollock, R. & Wilbanks, J. (2010, February 19). Panton principles for open data in science. Retrieved from http://pantonprinciples .org/ Data Re-Use and Licensing Frameworks. (n.d.). Retrieved from Australian National Data Service website: http://www.ands.org.au/publishing/licensing .html WIPO Lex. (n.d.). Retrieved from World Intellectual Property Organization website: http://www.wipo .int/wipolex/en/. (Database of national intellectual property laws and treaties.) Creative Commons licences. (2009, March). London: JISC. Retrieved from http :/ /www .jisc .ac .uk/publications/briefingpapers/2009/ bpcreativecommons.aspx Diagnostic Tools. (2010). Retrieved from Open Educational Resources Intellectual Property Rights Support Project website: http://www .web2rights .com/ OERIPRSupport/diagnostics.html Starter Pack. (2010). Retrieved from Open Educational Resources Intellectual Property Rights Support Project website: http://www .web2rights .com/ OERIPRSupport/starter.html Pollock, R., Gray, J. et al. (n.d.). Guide to open data licensing. Retrieved from Open Definition website: http://opendefinition.org/guide/data/ Please cite as: Ball, A. (2014). ‘How to License Research Data’. DCC How-to Guides. Edinburgh: Digital Curation Centre. Available online: http://www.dcc.ac.uk/resources/how-guides Follow the DCC on Twitter: @digitalcuration, #ukdcc Revised: 17 July 2014