Lease, license or sell: what each means for your data
Three ways to work with a buyer. The difference is who keeps a copy, for how long, and who owns it afterwards.
Picture made for ABURA Bureau.
Lease it. A buyer pays for access to a copy for a fixed period. When the period ends, their use stops and the copy is deleted, unless the deal says otherwise. You can lease the same data again.
License it. A buyer receives a copy to use for the purposes and the period you agree. The ownership stays with you, or with whoever holds the rights, and the same data can be licensed to others, unless you agree that one buyer has it exclusively.
Sell it. You transfer the copy, and the rights you choose to sell, for one payment. It is a clean break, if that suits you best.
Why can the same data earn more than once? As the World Bank's 2021 World Development Report puts it, using data for one purpose does not diminish its value. The OECD found that sharing data can create 10 to 20 times more value for the people who use it than for the company holding it.
Most owners lease or license, so the same data can earn again. A combination works too: a licence to one buyer and a lease to another, decided buyer by buyer.
Two things to settle in every deal. First, whether the buyer may train AI models with the data, which is set out deal by deal. Second, exclusivity: an exclusive licence means nobody else can have the data for the agreed period, so weigh it carefully.
You see every offer from the AI data buyers we work with, and nothing moves without your agreement. For a company that has closed, these decisions belong to whoever now holds the rights, such as the liquidator or administrator.
