Hello everyone. Today we're going to be talking about data. So data is commonly defined as a collection of facts or information, and I personally tend to think of data as a bunch of numbers on a spreadsheet. But data can actually be a bunch of different things in teaching and research. It could be archaeological notes from an archaeological dig, it could be images from the Hubble Telescope, or even ocean tide measurements. So under US copyright law, facts are not given copyright protection. Therefore data as a compilation of data or an arrangement of facts, are not protected. The US also doesn't recognize what is sometimes called sweat of the brow. So even if took you a lot of time and effort to collect the data, that's not enough for it actually to get copyright protection. So one of the reasons that we are so certain about data is there was a Supreme Court case called Feist Publications, Inc versus Rural Telephone Service from 1991. And in that case, the Feist Publications had extracted whitepages listings from the rural telephone director, and as you can imagine, the rural telephone directory objected to this extraction of their information. So, in that case, the US Supreme Court found that it was originality and not effort that was the touchstone of copyright protection in directories and other works that are basically fact-based. So if you look at the whitepages, as the example in that case, whitepages are arranged in a very logical order by last name. So that is not enough in of itself to get copyright protection. >> So hard work isn't enough in order to have a copyright. >> No, it's really not. >> But, just because data as facts doesn't get a copyright protection, there are some additional things to think about around data. One is that compilations are copyrightable. And the definition of a compilation, according to US copyright law, is a work formed by the collection of preexisting materials or of data that are selected, coordinated, or arranged in such a way that the resulting work, as a whole, constitutes an original work of authorship. So the component pieces, not copyrightable, but perhaps when compiled, you have something that can be copyrighted. In addition, spreadsheets of numbers are facts but they also can be arranged in different ways that may entail a copyright. For example, if arranged on a bar chart or graph that may be sufficient expression to have a copyright in the bar chart or graph at that point. And finally, the data can become a trade secret. So it may be that you have facts that are not copyrightable but if they are maintained by a business and maintained as a secret or confidential. And that there is economic value to that secret, then you may have a protected type of data even though it's not copyrightable. So for example, a client list. Kind of like the phone book, phone numbers, names, might be not copyrightable, but might be maintained as a trade secret if it were very valuable and confidential for that business. >> Seems that's related in some ways to privacy, which can also be something that comes up with data. Data may have personally identifiable information that may have privacy concerns. It may have health information, which may be protected under HIPAA regulations, which is the Healthcare Insurance Portability and Accountability Act. Or it may be that it involves human subjects in which case it would need IRB, or Institutional Review Board, approval. So there are other things, as you say, in addition to trade secrets with privacy that might govern how data can be shared. It's also possible that someone who creates a collection of data may actually put contractual provisions on how that data set can be used. So while the data set itself may not be protected by copyright, there may be contractual provisions in place that will dictate how that data can be used. And generally because we have a freedom to contract in US law, those contract provisions would trump essentially anything under potentially copyright law. >> And conversely, there are times when people want data to be open. Many advocates in the open-access community are suggesting that people apply a Creative Commons Zero license to data. And that shows the world, including jurisdictions that may protect data is copyrightable, that you are waving all the rights to the data and you are anxious for it to be used and reused by others. Perhaps to replicate an experiment or in order that someone can do further research. >> So thank you for watching and listening.
