What is the difference between licensing data and selling it?
A sale transfers ownership permanently in exchange for one payment. A license grants defined rights over defined material for a defined period while the company keeps ownership, keeps operating on its own records, and can license again later.
In depth
A sale transfers the asset outright: one payment, ownership gone, no further claim on anything done with it afterward. A license grants use instead. The buyer gets specified rights over specified material for a specified period, and everything not granted stays with the company, since ownership never moves. Day to day, the company operates exactly as it did before either way, though a sale can carry restrictions a license does not.
A sale can carry a higher single number, but a license usually pays more over the life of the asset, because an operating business does not stop producing. The record that is worth $100K to $2M today is larger next year and larger again the year after. A sale prices that growing asset once, at its smallest. A non-exclusive license prices it repeatedly as it grows, and for a company that intends to keep operating, that difference compounds. An exclusive license, where no other buyer may license the material for the term, commands a premium but closes off every other buyer for the duration, so it is a decision to make deliberately.
A sale can make sense in narrow cases: a record from a business that has wound down is no longer growing, and a company that wants no continuing obligation may reasonably prefer to be finished with it. For a going concern with a record that is still accumulating, the license is the better instrument, and it is also the structure Polyshares uses. The company keeps the business and the underlying data, and the license is defined and bounded.
- Ownership
- Sale transfers it permanently. A license leaves it with the company.
- Your own use
- Unaffected either way in practice, though a sale can carry restrictions. A license does not.
- Repeatability
- A sale happens once. A non-exclusive license can be granted again as the record grows.
- Payment shape
- A sale is a single number. A license can be structured per term, per buyer, or both.
- Risk
- A sale ends any control over downstream use. A license carries defined scope and permitted use.
Related questions
Who else is bidding, and why pick a buyer over a marketplace?
Marketplaces list your data and take a cut when someone eventually buys. We are the buyer. You get one counterparty, an offer within one to two weeks, and no listing fee. Nothing is public.
What happens to the data afterwards?
We anonymize it, build it into data sets, and supply AI labs. Use is bounded by the license, and we do not disclose which labs take which data.
What does it cost the company?
Nothing. There is no fee and no commission, because we are not working on your behalf. We are buying. Money moves in one direction, from us to you.
Speak with someone on the team.
The intake tells us quickly whether there is a market for what your company holds. You will get a straight answer either way.
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