Welcome to the K-State Libraries' Guide to geospatial resources! This guide is designed to help you find data with spatial components. If this guide does not have the information you are looking for, don't hesitate to Ask a Librarian.
Copyright law does not apply to facts, data, or ideas.
However, copyright may protect the way these facts, ideas, and systems are expressed such as:
Do you have a copyright question? Contact cads@k-state.edu
Data can be expensive and time-consuming to produce and process - often depending on its size, scope, complexity, and available funding. The more people a survey includes, or the more observations that are recorded, the longer it will take for the data to be collected and processed, and the more expensive it is.
Data can also be embargoed. This is a ban on the publication of documents (or in this case data), for security or copyright reasons. Scientists can wait until they have finished analyzing their data before making it available. The US Census does this as well; reports on the changes in the population were available before the data was released to the general public.