Copyright and "facts": issues in licensing and redistribution for social science data professionals.

While data and statistics have always been the backbone of empirical research, they are now important intellectual property even outside the halls of academia. Everything from the global financial system to shipping gifts for the holidays depends on data: in today's digital world, information and data are crucial commodities. But often there are strings attached to the access, usage and reporting of data, even if the data are "free". Researchers may compile a dataset, but what rights do they have for the use of those data? This paper will outline some of the issues and considerations of which data professionals in the social science need to be aware. Copyright, licensing, redistribution and intellectual property rights are now important issues that data users, and those who support them, need to understand early on in the research process