Disclaimer to DDBJ data

=Are there any restrictions in using DDBJ data ?=

DDBJ data set is a collaborative work of tens of thousands of authors world wide.
DDBJ data set is an accumulation of DNA records submitted to one of DDBJ, GenBank and EMBL-Bank as a world wide collaborative effort called INSDC (International Nucleotide Sequence Database Collaboration).

Although DDBJ does not impose any control over the use of any part of the accumulated records, there have not been any copyright transfer from authors of the records upon submission. This is the reason why we, DDBJ, avoid making any definite statement that anybody may freely copy/modify/redistribute any part of the data set.

Since 2002, we ask all submitting authors to read the following policy, according to the advice from International Advisory Committee.

“The INSD will not attach statements to records that restrict access to the data, limit the use of the information in these records, or prohibit certain types of publications based on these records. Specifically, no use restrictions or licensing requirements will be included in any sequence data records, and no restrictions or licensing fees will be placed on the redistribution or use of the database by any party.”

We believe that by doing this we, in effect, obtain a permission equivalent to a waiver of copyright from authors. In fact, no author of the DDBJ records have claimed any restriction about the reuse of any part of the data set by the third parties until now.

Hence, DDBJ data set is a quasi-public domain data, which is made by the collaboration of the many and which can be reused freely.

Kousaku Okubo 2011, CIB-DDCJ center