1. Third-party licensing
We’ve heard about informed consent and DUAs; now, let’s talk about licensing.
2. Licensing
Data compliance is about adhering to mandatory laws and regulations. Data licensing is an agreement between data providers and users specifying usage rights.
We will discuss different third-party licensing options, which refer to the permissions granted by the data owner to another party, determining how it can be used and any restrictions.
Licensing gives us many opportunities, including diverse data sources, time and cost savings, and access to reliable data.
Some popular licenses are the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Berkeley Software Distribution (BSD), Creative Commons (CC), Apache, and General Public License (GNU).
These licenses vary in the copyright, cost, modification, distribution, and attribution rights they grant.
3. Most common types of licenses
Licenses are classified into public domain, open source, and proprietary licenses.
4. Most common types of licenses
The open source licenses are further split into permissive and copyleft licenses, with copyleft ensuring that modifications are also open source.
5. Most common types of licenses
And then copyleft licenses are split into weak and strong copyleft licenses.
6. Public domain licenses
Public domain licenses allow free commercial use, distribution, modification, and private use without source disclosure. It's the most open license available.
7. Open-source licenses
Open-source licenses have copyright. Generally, they grant permission for anybody to use, modify, and share licensed work but set some restrictions on usage and distribution. Two major types of open-source licenses are permissive and copyleft.
Permissive licenses are more flexible and allow broader use, including in projects we plan to sell. Some examples of permissive licenses are MIT License, Apache License, BSD License.
8. Copyleft licenses
Copyleft licenses have more restrictions and require disclosure of any changes made and keep it under the same license.
Copyleft licenses are further classified into strong and weak.
A strong copyleft license requires that changed work use the same type of license: if the original dataset is under a GPL license, any work using that dataset must also be released under the GPL license.
A weak copyleft license allows for data to be modified or combined with other data from a different license as long as the copyleft license terms are adhered to for the copyleft portions.
9. Proprietary Licenses
Proprietary licenses retain full rights and control over the work. This license restricts the use, modification, and distribution of data, and users can only use the data under specific conditions outlined in an End-User License Agreement (EULA). They often require payment. Proprietary licenses are common in commercial products and are designed to protect intellectual property (IP) rights.
10. Elements of licensing agreements
Every licensed work comes with a licensing agreement, which is a legal contract that sets the terms under which one party (the licensee) can use the data created by another party (the licensor).
Licensing agreements typically include a definition of the parties involved, the resource to be licensed, the purpose and scope of use, duration and termination terms, fees and payment terms, warranties and liabilities, confidentiality and data protection provisions, and finally, details regarding modification.
11. Selecting a license
To choose the appropriate license, we first decide if we want to keep full rights and control over the data. If the answer is yes, we opt for a proprietary license.
12. Selecting a license
If not, we decide on copyright and related rights. If it falls under copyright, we consider open-source licenses; otherwise, we use a Public Domain license.
13. Selecting a license
Next, we consider if commercial use is allowed; if not, we need to use a custom license. If yes,
14. Selecting a license.
we decide if other works are allowed and if it uses a compatible license. If yes, we select a strong copyleft license and if not, we will choose a weak copyleft license.
15. Selecting a license
As with most decisions involving data, always consider ethics, privacy, and security, and seek legal counsel where relevant.
16. Let's practice!
Now, let's practice!