---
name: data-licence-check
description: >-
  Check data-source licences during research and planning so experiments use
  shareable data and results stay independently verifiable. Use whenever a plan
  or experiment selects data sources (datasets, corpora, scripture
  translations, scraped text, model weights), before finalising a data
  selection, before training anything intended to be published, or when asked
  to check/audit licences. Flags non-redistributable sources and proposes a
  shareable-only subset. Invoke with /data-licence-check.
disable-model-invocation: false
---

# Data licence check

Verify that every data source in a plan permits the intended use — especially
redistribution of anything derived from it — and steer the work toward
**shareable data**, so that others can reproduce and verify the results.

Default stance: **prefer a shareable-only data selection.** A result others
cannot re-run on the same data is much less useful. Restricted data is allowed
only for explicitly research-only runs that will never be published, and even
then flag that no one else can verify them and offer a shareable alternative.

## When to run this

- While planning or scoping any experiment that selects data sources.
- Before committing a data selection (e.g. inside `/interview-and-plan`).
- Before training, generating, or publishing anything derived from data.
- Whenever the user asks to check, audit, or reason about data licences.

## The core rule for derived work

A **trained model and its generated outputs are derivative works** of the
training data. The training data's licence therefore propagates to them. So the
question is never only "may I use this text?" but "may I share a *model* (and
its outputs) derived from it?"

Aggregate facts *about* the data — evaluation scores, counts, metadata,
identifiers — are generally not derivative works and are normally safe to
publish. The copyrighted *expression* (the text itself) and adaptations of it
(models, generated text, aligned/reformatted corpora) are the sensitive part.

## How to check

1. **List every source** the plan touches: each dataset, corpus, translation,
   scraped collection, and any pretrained model used as a base.
2. **Find each licence** from the authoritative field, not a proxy. Record the
   exact licence per source; never assume.
3. **Classify each** for *sharing a derivative*:

   | Licence | Share a derived model/output? |
   |---|---|
   | Public Domain / CC0 | Yes |
   | CC-BY | Yes (attribution) |
   | CC-BY-SA | Yes, but **ShareAlike propagates** — the derived work must also be CC-BY-SA |
   | CC-BY-NC | Only non-commercially (opt-in), never commercially |
   | CC-BY-ND, CC-BY-NC-ND | **No** — NoDerivatives forbids sharing adaptations |
   | Unknown / unstated / other | **No** — treat as not shareable |

4. **Propagate the strictest constraint** across the whole selection: one
   `by-sa` source makes the derived model `by-sa`; one `by-nd`/`nc-nd`/unknown
   source makes the whole run non-publishable as a derivative.
5. **Report** a table of source → licence → shareable? → resulting model
   licence, and a clear go / no-go. If any source blocks sharing, propose a
   **shareable-only subset** and note what it costs (which sources drop out).

## Outcome

- **Publishable / verifiable run**: every source permits derivative sharing.
  State the propagated model licence (e.g. `cc-by-sa-4.0` if any ShareAlike,
  else `cc-by-4.0`, else `cc0-1.0`). This is the default target.
- **Research-only run**: includes a non-shareable source. Allowed, but say so
  plainly — the model, its generated output and any side-by-side sheets cannot
  be published, and no one else can reproduce it. Offer the shareable subset as
  the alternative.

## Project note: the eBible corpus

For work on `DavidCBaines/ebible_corpus`, the real signal is
`licence_Licence_Type` in `metadata.parquet`, **not** the `Redistributable`
flag — that flag covers only the source text, not a derived model. Shareable
types: `Public Domain`, `by`, `by-sa`; `by-nc` is shareable non-commercially
only (opt-in). Never shareable as a derivative: `by-nd`, `by-nc-nd`,
`Unknown`, and anything else. Build licence-filtered selections up front so a
run is verifiable by design, rather than discovering afterwards that a
restricted translation (e.g. `deuelbbk`, `by-nc-nd`) has made the whole run
unpublishable.