Several of my clients sell SaaS (Software as a Service) products. Access to their software is entirely web-based. They process information provided by their customers. In the course of processing this information, they generate metadata and usage data. In some cases, for clients whose business is providing analytics, the metadata or usage data is the whole point of their service.
The question is, who owns that data, and what does ownership of that data mean? I think a reasonable way to look at it would be:
- Customer owns any data they provide
- Customer "owns" metadata in the sense that SaaS provider can only use it in the context of providing services to Customer; however:
- Customer has no right to actually get the data, except in a format that SaaS provider has agreed to provide. If Customer is paying for analytics, Customer and SaaS provider should work out in advance whether Customer can export the metadata after their access to the software is terminated; in the absence of any agreement, Customer has no right to access the metadata.
- SaaS provider can transform the data by anonymizing it and aggregating it with other data; Saas provider should have full ownership over this, including the right to sell it to third parties
If anyone bothered to read this, feel free to weigh in on whether you think this makes sense and conforms with what you would expect as an Internet user (of, say, Facebook). Just needed a space to think out loud. Now back to my regularly scheduled "cute thing my kid said today" / "blathering about biglaw" posts.
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