What happens after you license your data

Typically three to six weeks, occasionally more. A few buyers pay only after formal written acceptance, which adds time. With a broker in the middle, check whether the money passes through them first.

Advertised prices are mostly single payments for an agreed batch of records, though some deals recur or share revenue.

After scrubbing, the raw export is destroyed, sometimes at once and sometimes up to two months later. The scrubbed copy goes onward, kept for as long as the license allows.

You may not learn its final destination, since MIT Technology Review found sellers frequently have no view of which lab ends up with it.

• Your signed copy of the contract
• A record of exactly what went in and what was held back
• Written confirmation that raw files were deleted
• The payment record

A future acquirer or auditor will ask for these.

A non-exclusive deal may let you re-license those records, or license newer ones later. Certain buyers make exclusivity the default. See licensing more than once.