Licensing your data

Publishing and sharing data or code without telling people how they can use it is not advisable. You should attach a license to your repository before you make it public. A common way to do this is to provide a file called LICENSE in the root of your repositories, which should contain the full text of the corresponding license.

When creating a repository, you can select a license from the "Initial Files" section of the creation page. If you would like to add one of the available licenses after creating a repository, you can download the license text from the list below and upload it to the top level (root) of your repository with the name LICENSE:

When requesting to publish a repository with a DOI, a license is mandatory. Please provide in your repository:

  1. A LICENSE file with the text of the license.
  2. The license name and URL to the original license text in the datacite.yml metadata file as described on the Obtaining a DOI page.

Dataset Licenses

The following licenses are suitable for publishing datasets:

Note that under most jurisdictions, including EU and US, the data as such, by their nature as facts, are not protected by copyright. The appropriate "license" therefore would be a Public Domain Declaration such as CC0. Licenses might apply to the specific collection, combination, or organization of data in a dataset, or any copyrighted material.

A Public Domain Declaration does not preclude the obligation of users of the published material to adhere to the rules of responsible research and good scientific practice, including giving credit and citing sources.

Software Licenses

The following licenses are more appropriate for publishing software (source code):

Besides the license, software should include copyright information. Some of the licenses provide for a copyright statement in the license file. Alternatively, the copyright statement can be included in the code.

If your repository contains both data and code, it may be a good idea to separate them in different subfolders that contain individual licenses.

Thomas Wachtler edited this page 1 year ago