Answer

When publishing your data and code, it's crucial that you apply a license. A license is a document that acts as your official permission for others to do, use, or own something for which you are the copyright owner (like code you've written, or data you've gathered). Code and data have different licenses that you can use with each.

It's a crucial part of scholarly communications -- your colleagues need to know exactly how they can use your materials, and you can establish boundaries that you are comfortable with. Releasing your materials without a license creates ambiguity in how they can (re)used, (re)distributed, and more. You can get help with understanding licenses from both Data Services (see guide) and Scholarly Communication and Information Policy (see guide) departments within NYU Libraries.