Industry Code of Practice for the Use of Licensed Geophysical Data

Non-exclusive or multi-client geophysical data (also sometimes called spec data) is licensed by data owners under the terms of a license agreement. Over the years the members of IAGC have developed and updated a model data licensing agreement and made it available to the industry. Most data library owners have chosen, independently and voluntarily, to embrace the general concepts and structure, and thereby many of the provisions, of the IAGC model form in their own data licensing agreements. Similarly, many E&P companies have embraced many of the elements of the IAGC model license agreements when licensing their proprietary data after it no longer holds competitive advantage.

IAGC members who license geophysical data continue to find that Licensees assume rights not granted in the license agreements or that they ignore, intentionally or otherwise, restrictions or prohibitions in those agreements. Notwithstanding other things that can be said about this chronic situation, it erodes data library owners’ ability to deliver financial returns commensurate with risk undertaken to the ultimate data providers – their owners/shareholders.

IAGC members have prepared an Industry Code of Practice for the Use of Licensed Geophysical Data (separate pdf file) for use by all who work with this data to aid them when dealing with it to remember the fundamentals of data ownership and the license agreements by which their rights emanate. This Code of Practice clearly sets out rights and obligations around those areas of data license agreements most commonly misconstrued or violated. This Code of Practice is prepared. Data owners look to Licensees to ensure license terms, as well as data owners’ rights (those not explicitly granted in license agreements), are honored. Permission is hereby granted to any wishing to use this Code of Practice in any way they wish.

INDUSTRY CODE OF PRACTICE FOR THE USE OF LICENSED GEOPHYSICAL DATA

• Licensed data is the property of the licensing geophysical data owner. This ownership transcends and survives any reprocessing, merging, or enhancement of the data.
• Terms of data use are bound by a Data License Agreement and Data Licenses are not transferable.
• Data may only be shown to third parties under the terms of the Data License Agreement.
• Partner companies must each hold licenses for data used jointly in multi-company projects.
• Data reviews are for QC and general data assessment, not for obtaining geological or exploration insights without licensing data.
• Any consultants or third parties working with licensed data are bound by the same terms and conditions as licensees.
• Licensed data may not be published in any form without the written permission of the data owner.