Introduction
Data Republic’s legal framework establishes the rights and responsibilities of organizations on the Senate platform and gives organizations the ability to flexibly negotiate and agree to licensing terms for inter-organizational data collaboration projects.
The Data Republic Senate Platform is made available to our customers (Participants) under license on a subscription basis. Each license includes access to the Senate Platform, appropriate support services, Project workflows and access to Workspaces for secure analytics.
Our legal framework has been established in modules to provide a basis for common understanding between participants, as well as to deliver flexibility for organizations to participate only in those aspects that are relevant; and to step in alternative/existing agreements for data exchange where such may already be in place.
Below is a summary of legal agreements available and the use case for each:
Overview of each of the above components:
Senate License
This is the foundational document among our legal components. The Senate license is a typical SaaS (software as a service) license, which grants each Participant access to use the Data Republic Senate Platform and establishes the rights and responsibilities of Data Republic and the Participant.
The commercial terms for each license are covered in a Term Sheet which includes :
- Any applicable modules (for additional functionality)
- The term of the license (including any renewal terms)
- The functional inclusions (number of users, Governed Spaces and Workspaces)
- The fees associated with the license and any other fees incurred
Multiple Term Sheets can be executed depending on the Participant’s need.
Common Legal Framework
Developed in conjunction with leading legal experts, the Data Republic Common Legal Framework is a balanced and functional framework for multi-party data exchange.
Each Participant has the option to leverage the Common Legal Framework in order to conduct data exchanges with other Participants on the Data Republic Senate Platform.
The Common Legal Framework has been designed to provide a high level of flexibility, control and confidence to Participants. There are three data exchange modules:
- Data Contributor Module
- Data Recipient Module
- Data Developer Module
Each module sets out the terms that will apply to Participants in an exchange according to the role they play (this may include one or multiple roles).
Each exchange (Project) on the Data Republic Senate Platform, is conducted according to the terms set out in the applicable License, agreed on the platform. This requires approval by each relevant Participant, ensuring continued control of your data. The License is executed as a binding contract between the relevant Participants and will persist as a record of the commercial (and if applicable, additional Special Conditions) terms associated with each discrete data exchange.
Commercialisation of data is an option on Senate, not a requirement. Many of the exchanges are collaborative between organisations, and data fees are not a feature. It is up to each Participant to determine whether or not their Data Sets will be listed on the Data Republic catalog (if there is no listing, other participants will not be aware of any data that they may load to the Senate platform).
Third Party Exchange Module
Participants are able to use their existing legal arrangements for third party data sharing and exchange, by selecting the Third Party Exchange Module.
The Third Party Exchange Module sets out that the multi-party exchange functionality will be made available to the Participant to conduct exchanges with third parties who may or may not be a Participant. These exchanges will be carried out on the Senate Platform, but will be governed according to the Participant’s own legal arrangement.
Participants are able to conduct third party exchanges with both other Participants and with third parties that are not Data Republic Participants (Third Party Users)
Senate Matching Services
The Senate Matching Services Module sets out the terms on which a Participant is able to use the Data Republic Senate Matching Services for data tokenisation and matching services.
The functional aspects of Data Republic Senate Matching Services can be found in the Senate Matching User Guide.
Guest License
In order to conduct an exchange with a Third Party User, the Third Party User must be approved by Data Republic as a Third Party User and sign a Guest license.
Once the Guest license has been signed, the Third Party User will be granted access to the governed space designated by the Participant for the exchange to occur. The Participant (Host Organization) will be responsible at all times for the actions of the Third Party User (including the content of any data uploaded onto the Data Republic Senate Platform and the conduct of any exchanges).
Organization administrators of Hosts are able to view the details of their Guest licensees on their organization page on Senate. This will include the effective and expiration date of the guest license and whether the license auto-renews.
Guest licensee organization administrators are able to view details of their guest license on their organization page on Senate. This includes the name of the Host organization, license effective and expiration dates and whether the license auto-renews.
End User License Agreement
Data Republic participants include analytical firms that create derived data products that might include aggregations, maps, scores and other outputs that are several steps removed from the raw data provided by one or more data contributors. If these data product producers sell a data product to a non-participant, then the EULA can be used to protect the interests of data owners, to the extent that their intellectual property still exists within.
To understand how the Data Republic modules can be applied to different scenarios, please see the below legal framework modules and scenario matrix:
Related articles
View Senate License agreements
Data Republic Legal FAQ