Research data

Research data is an interesting area for copyright. Much of what we see as ‘data’ – facts, names, numbers, etc. – is not protected by copyright, regardless of the effort involved in gathering it. But as ‘data’ is a broad term, there may be material that meets the minimum requirements for copyright protection, such as quotes/transcripts/text, images, sound clips, etc.

There may also be protection in how you express or use data. Generally, the more original the data(set), or creative the expression of data, the more likely you will have copyright protection. This can have complexities for the application of open licensing, such as Creative Commons, that is reliant on copyright. The CC0 public domain dedication tool or other licensing may be more appropriate for some data (PDF).

Where copyrightable data is taken from existing material, any copyright will most likely remain with the original owners and may limit the shareability of the data (see the tab below for more).

There are also usually other ‘copyright-like’ or ‘copyright-adjacent’ concerns with data, such as ownership and access, and considerations for privacy/anonymity or commercial-in-confidence. ‘Sui generis’ rights for databases (complex datasets) may also apply in some countries. Check out the Library’s Researcher Skills Toolkit for considerations around ownership, access, and more for data(sets).

Our guide to research data and copyright (PDF) has more on data and copyright, along with information for licensing open data.