When thinking about sharing research data, it is important to think about issues of data ownership.

• The University of Denver's Intellectual Property Policy outlines DU's policy on issues of intellectual property, copyright, and other related issues.

• Data itself cannot be copyrighted, although expressions of that data (such as charts or tables) can be.

• Members of the growing Open Data movement believe that scientific research data should be placed in the public domain and have endorsed the Panton Principles.

Licensing research data allows researchers to clearly define the terms under which the data is being shared. It also allows future users to be confident in their right to make use of the data. 

• The Digital Curation Centre has produced a guide on licensing research data

• These waivers and licenses are appropriate to use to define the terms of use for data.

Photo by Lumaxart retrieved from Wikimedia