TUData cannot offer legal advice, so we refer to recommendations or bodies that can assist you with your questions.
Copyright
Mere facts are not protected by copyright. However, due to the diversity of research data (e.g. including databases, qualitative data, software code), copyright issues must be examined on a case-by-case basis. For example, the compilation of data in a database may under certain circumstances give rise to a protected database work if the relevant conditions are met.
- Information on legal topics at forschungsdaten.info – Legal Issues
- BMBF: Daten, Fakten und Ideen. Sind meine Forschungsdaten und -ergebnisse urheberrechtlich geschützt? (German)
- Till Kreutzer, Henning Lahmann (2019): Rechte an Forschungsdaten und Datenbanken (German)
- Information on copyright of the E-Learning Working Group (German)
Licences for research data and software
To avoid uncertainties in data reuse, it is recommended that research data are published under a licence. Open Creative Commons licences have become established for research data, but other types of licences may be used for databases or software. To comply with the FAIR principles, the licence for metadata should be as free as possible (CC0). Funding agencies sometimes make specifications on licensing or issue recommendations.
- Creative Commons licences: https://creativecommons.org/choose/
- Open Source Licences: https://choosealicense.com/
Data protection
If you collect or process personal data, various measures must be taken, which you should already consider in the planning phase of your project. If you have any questions or uncertainties, you should contact the data protection officers at the TU-Darmstadt (German).
Further information
Information on legal topics at forschungsdaten.info – Legal Issues
HeFDI materials on legal frameworks for research data management (German)