E. Böker /  CC BY 4.0

Copy right law

An important desideratum in academia is long-term archiving of research data. Research data can only be archived long-term with the permission of the rights holder (e.g. the creator or principal) and if third-party rights are not violated which means that either the data must be licensed or a simple or exclusive right to use must apply . An overview of German usage rights is provided in UrhG §15.

It is recommended to treat research data as a protected resource according to German copyright law, since in some cases the necessary  threshold of originality may be reached.  If this is indeed the case this can only be ascertained through legal assessment of each individual case. That is why research insitutions should contractually determine conditions for re-use of the data with the author/creator.

Data protection law

Research data that contain personal data might be subject to different legal regulations than other research data. The following legal texts apply: