Licences for Research Data
You would like to publish your data but do not know what licence to choose? An overview of different popular licences and what they are best used for.
Choosing a clear licence for your (data) publication gives everyone security about what you permit others to do with your publication. (That is also true for you re-using your own journal articles with an open licence.)
For choosing a licence, there are two things to consider:
Firstly: What kind of data am I publishing? Not every licence is suitable for every kind of data, so have an eye on the description below.
Secondly: How open do I want the re-use to be? Would you like others to be able to use your code for further development? Would you like permit commercial use of your images, e.g. in the media?
Once you have answered these questions for yourself, you can find a suitable licence for you and your data. There are several different pre-formulated licences from trustworthy sources that you can use for free.
Let us have a look at the most popular:
GPL Licence (aka GNU)
Published by:
Free Software Foundation FSF (non-profit NGO)
Licence text:
gnu.org website
Made for:
Software
Form:
One text, currently version 3
How to use:
Add copyright notice to the code file (Guide by the FSF)
What it says:
Free re-use of software (incl. commercial), but derivatives have to be licenced openly too
PROs:
Open and free re-use in accordance with ideas of Open Science
CONs:
Rigid licence text, not adaptable
Good to know:
Helpful GNU FAQ
MIT Licence
Published by:
Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)
Licence text:
opensource.org/license/mit
Made for:
Software
Form:
One text, one version
How to use:
Copy the short licence text into the header or footer of your code text
What it says:
Free use without restriction (incl. commercial) with statement of the copyright notice (your name and year) and the licence text
PROs:
Open, easy to understand, short text
CONs:
Can be adapted to more restricted permissions (has to be done individually)
Good to know:
The Apache licence is seen as having the same content with more licence text
Creative Commons (CC)
Published by:
Creative Commons Organisation (non-profit)
Licence text:
creativecommons.org
Made for:
All kinds of data (code not recommended, though), text
Form:
Modular system
How to use:
Put the logo of the licence on your work and link to the licence text on the Creative Commons website
Different Creative Commons Licences
A word on non-commercial licences:
Initailly, some authors tend towards non-commercial licences because they want to prohibit any entity making money with their work without paying them. While this is understandable, it might also be to your disadvantage sometimes. First and foremost: Whatever is plagiarism under a closed licence, is still plagiarism under an open licence. So, under any under the above mentioned licences, credit to you and your work has to be given, even by commercial entities.
The other point to consider is: some applications that you might like are classified as commercial too, e.g. ResearchGate. So if you like to upload your full texts there, a non-commercial licence is not the right choice for you. Similar is the case if you want a newspaper or other media publishing an article on your research to be able to use your images or charts to illustrate your work.
If you have any questions about licences, please do not hesitate to contact your Research Data Managers.