The legal status of raw data: a guide for research practice
12/4/2009
Costs: free
Author: Prof.mr.dr. Madeleine de Cock e.a.
A guide to clarify the legal protection applying to research data, intended for researchers who need to know what they can do with other people’s data.
A guide to clarify the legal protection applying to research data, intended for researchers who need to know what they can do with other people’s data.
The opportunities opened up by ICT and the Internet are making access to research results and data broader and more open. It is increasingly possible to add to the text of a publication by enriching it with other materials, including the relevant research data. By making that data accessible, it becomes easier to verify research results and to reproduce and reuse them.
But when reusing raw research data, it is important to know the legal status of the material. Sometimes, the consent of the “author” (i.e. the “maker”) of the data is required; however, some actions involving data can be carried out without consent.
SURFdirect wishes to clarify the legal protection applying to research data for researchers who need to know what they can do with other people’s data. That information will also allow researchers to determine whether they also need to protect their own research data.
As part of the SURFshare programme, SURFdirect requested the Centre for Intellectual Property Law (CIER) to explain the rules under which research data may be protected. The report provides an overview of the current situation on the basis of the most important legislation and case law. It consists of three sections, dealing successively with intellectual property (copyright, database right, and protection of non-original writings), privacy, and liability.
A brief guide is also provided to enable researchers to determine whether consent is required in order to reuse someone else’s research data.
This report is also part of a broader research amongst the
Knowledge Exchange countries Denmark, Germany and the United Kingdom:
Report on the Legal Status of Research Data in the four partner countries.
The report also addresses where European copyright and database law poses flaws and obstacles to the access to research data and singles out pre-conditions for openly available data.
The legal status of raw data: a guide for research practice