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Terms

If none of the standard licenses in the drop-down menu are suitable for the dataset, you must select Custom Dataset Terms from the drop-down menu and enter the license or terms of use as free text in the Terms of Use field that appears. Contact the DataverseNO user forum or the DataverseNO repository management at support@dataverse.no to clarify the wording to be entered.

If you have chosen a standard license of the Creative Commons type, it is not permitted to add other/more terms of use, e.g., in the Citation Requirements field. For more information about why CC0 is a suitable license for research data, see the section "License Selection and Professional Norms" in the Dataverse User Guide. In the Word document "Grunngjeving_for_CC0_og_mot_friteksttillegg_til_standardlisensar.docx" in the DvNO-brukarforum Teams (see the Lisensar folder in the Metadata og dokumentasjon channel), you will find some arguments you can use when contacting researchers who do not want to use licenses/Terms of Use that are aligned with DataverseNO recommendations.

Note! DataverseNO only accepts licenses that provide access to data. See the DataverseNO Access and Use Policy:

In line with the intention of DataverseNO to provide maximum public access to unrestricted research data, DataverseNO promotes licenses that are recommended for the re-use of research data, and only accepts licenses providing access to deposited data in one form or another.

If the dataset under curation is (partly) based on data from other sources, one must examine what terms of use these data have, choose an appropriate license, and specify the license / Terms of Use of the used sources in the metadata field Data Sources.

If the dataset under curation is based on several sources, the most restrictive terms of use determine which license the dataset under curation can be published under. Example: A dataset based on one data set with CC-BY and one with CC-BY-NC can be published under CC-BY-NC.

If the terms of use in the original dataset are formulated as a standard license (e.g. CC-BY), it is usually unproblematic to choose a license for the derived dataset as the license for the original dataset usually specifies under which license one can publish a derived dataset.

If the terms of use are formulated as a tailor-made text, then you must first clarify which license for re-use the terms of use allow for. If they e.g. state that the data can be reused freely and without restrictions as long as you refer to the source, the terms are usually compatible with a CC-BY license.

If a source specifies unclear terms of use, one should clarify with the licensee which standard license these terms of use are compatible with. The answer from the licensee should be added as a PDF/A to the dataset under curation, and the rights assessment should be summarized in the Data Source metadata field.

If a source does not specify any terms of use, one must clarify whether there are other aspects that can determine whether the reuse is permitted or not. This assessment should be summarized in the Data Source metadata field:

  • If (the intended reuse of) the data is not protected by IPR and/or database protection, it may be assumed that the data are in the Public Domain and may be freely reused.
  • If the data are protected by IPR and/or database protection, their reuse may still be permitted if it falls under certain exception rules, such as Fair use (USA cf. US Copyright Act: https://www.copyright.gov/fair-use/more-info.html), Fair dealing (UK; cf. Exceptions to copyright: https://www.gov.uk/guidance/exceptions-to-copyright), EU Database Directive (cf. art. 8 Rights and obligations of lawful users), «lover, forskrifter, rettsavgjørelser og andre vedtak av offentlig myndighet» (Norge; cf. § 14 i Åndsverkloven), «uvesentlige deler av databaser» (Norway; cf. § 24 in Åndsverkloven), «sitatretten» (Norway; cf. § 29 in Åndsverkloven) e.l.
  • If nothing of the above applies, one must contact the rights holder in order to clarify which terms of use that apply for the reuse of the data. One should get a written confirmation of what standard license the data may be reused. The answer from the rights holder should be included as a PDF/A in the dataset.

Here are two datasets that are based on a number of sources: https://doi.org/10.18710/NMKI2B, https://doi.org/10.18710/VMUP44. The rights clarifications documented in the Data Source metadata field and in the attached PDFs in these two datasets may be helpful when the curator is to provide guidance on this to the researcher.