In this talk we break down how to think about data and licensing so that when you are doing research, or publishing, or if you’re a librarian advising researchers and authors, you have a clear understanding of what you can do. Specifically, we will cover what to know and what to think about when you are using other people’s data, on the one hand, and on the other hand, when you are dealing with your own data.

1. Licensing
Research
Data
for Reuse
Rachael G. Samberg, JD, MLIS
Maria Gould, MA, MLIS
@UCB_scholcomm

2. “The rights holder of a collection of data is not
necessarily its original producer.
As a result, any provider or disseminator of
research data must know what entities hold any
rights to the data and abide by those rights.”
Legal interoperability of research data: Principles and implementation
guidelines.RDA-CODATA, 2016

3. 3
What to know
● Can we use other people’s data?
● Can we republish their data?
● Do we own our data?
● How can we share our data?

4. 4
What do we
mean by
licensing?

5. Article
Data

6. Controlling an organic synthesis robot
with machine learning to search for new reactivity

7. 7
[Y]ou grant each User of GitHub a
nonexclusive, worldwide license to use,
display, and perform Your Content through
the GitHub Service and to reproduce Your
Content solely on GitHub ... You may grant
further rights if you adopt a license.
Github Terms of Service
https://help.github.com/articles/github-terms-of-service/#d-user-generated-content

8. Creative Commons
Attribution License

9. 9
Can’t I just cite the
data I’m using, or can’t
someone just cite
mine?

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

11. 1 2 3
What rights
do we have?
Where
are we?
Other policy
concerns
4
Choose one
(if you can)
A workflow to
understand licensing

12. What rights do we have?
1

13. Our rights depend in
part on
Copyright waived
Copyright expired
Not subject to copyright

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

15. Exclusive
Rights
▪Reproduction
▪Derivative works
▪Distribution
▪Public
performance
▪Public display
Hans Meltofte, et al. (2013) Arctic
Biodiversity Assessment. Status and
Trends in Arctic Biodiversity

16. Limited
Period of
Time
● Varies, but at least author’s
life + 70 years
● Within “protected” period,
author’s permission needed
to reproduce, display,
perform, etc.
https://www.thefrugalgirl.com/2009/01/
expiration-dates/

17. ▪ Protects expression,
not ideas or facts
▪ Originality
▪ Fixed in a tangible
medium
Prerequisites

18. ▪ Federal government
works
▪ Expired copyright
Limitations:
Public Domain
USGS, Brook Trout Occurrence in Acadia National Park

19. ▪ Allow you to undertake exclusive rights
▫ without obtaining permission
▫ without payment of license fee
Limitations:
Statutory
Exemptions

20. “The fair use of a
copyrighted work…for
purposes such as criticism,
comment, news reporting,
teaching…, scholarship, or
research, is not an
infringement of copyright.”
Fair Use
17 U.S.C. § 107

21. Four- factor balancing test
1. Purpose & character of use
Commercial purposes less likely fair than
nonprofit educational; “transformativeness”
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 supplants market for
purchasing/licensing original.

22. Rules of thumb
for data?
▪Facts vs. compilations of facts
▪Quantitative vs. qualitative data
▪Databases
▫Expressive data
▫Organizational structures
▫Descriptive metadata

23. More on our rights...
1

24. Rights also depend on agreements
we’ve signed & institutional roles /
policies
Student vs. faculty vs. staff Funding agreements

25. Some relevant agreements
relate to the source of the data
we’re using
Website terms of use Database licenses

26. Restrictions on Systematic Downloading of Articles
Bulk downloading of articles from the main PMC web site, in any way, is
prohibited because of copyright restrictions.
PMC has two auxiliary services that may be used for automated retrieval and
downloading of a special subset of articles from the PMC archive. These two
services, the PMC OAI service and the PMC FTP service, are the only services
that may be used for automated downloading of articles in PMC. Do not use
any other automated processes for bulk downloading, even if you are only
retrieving articles from the PMC Open Access Subset.
Articles that are available through the PMC OAI and FTP services are still
protected by copyright but are distributed under a Creative Commons or similar
license that generally allows more liberal use than a traditional copyrighted
work. Please refer to the license statement in each article for specific terms of
use. The license terms are not identical for all the articles.
PubMed Central, https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/about/copyright/

27. 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. Other law & policy
3

30. Privacy

31. Indigenous
Knowledge
http://www.bananaip.com/wp-content/uploads/
2014/10/ayurveda1-2.jpg

32. Embargoes

33. Choosing a license
4

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

35. Choosing a license:
avoid ambiguity
or if you can
can cause confusion
If scholars follow citations practices, you would
not lose out on citations with CC0

36. Exercise
http://ucblib.link/LRD0802

37. Thanks!!!
Website:
www.lib.berkeley.edu/scholcom
m
E-mail:
schol-comm@berkeley.edu