Under the agreement, a de-identified copy of your data can be licensed to AI companies. You choose which data goes in, and the agreement sets what your company is paid. De-identified means that names, email addresses and other details that point straight to a person are swapped for labels before an AI company sees the data.
At a glance
| Term | What the standard agreement says |
|---|---|
| Your share | 60% of the licence fees collected for your data. No upfront payment, no guaranteed amount. Your company is paid only when an AI company buys a licence and accepts the data. |
| When your share is paid | Within 45 days of the buyer's fee being received, once the buyer has accepted the data. |
| Term and renewal | 3 years, then a year at a time unless either side gives notice at least 30 days before the period ends. |
| Exclusivity | The rider, the short document written for your company, says whether the licence is exclusive. If it is, your company cannot license the same data anywhere else while it runs. |
| Who can end it | The agreement runs for a fixed term. The other side can end it early without giving a reason. Your way out is to give notice at least 30 days before a renewal date. |
| Standing behind the data | You stand behind your data: you promise you have the right to license it and you cover the other side and its buyers if that turns out wrong. A limit on that cover, and a matching promise from the other side, can be added in the rider. |
| Who owns what | The agreement is a licence, so your company keeps ownership of its data. What buyers build from it belongs to them. |
| Disputes | The agreement is with a company in the United States. Mediation, then confidential arbitration. |
Source: the licensing company's published guide to its agreement, checked October 2026.
This page is an explanation, not legal advice
This page explains the agreement in plain English. It is not legal advice, and the signed agreement is what counts. Ask your own lawyer to read it before anyone signs.
It describes the standard agreement in general terms. The version your company is sent may differ, and some terms are set in a rider. A rider is a short document attached to the main agreement and written for your company.
When this is a bad idea
Think again if any of these is true of your company.
- Your company needs the money by a set date. There is no upfront payment and no guaranteed amount, and nobody can tell you when a first sale will happen, or whether one will.
- You may want to leave within the first 3 years. The agreement runs for a fixed term, and your way out is to give notice before a renewal date.
- You plan to license the same data another way. If the licence is exclusive, your company cannot license it anywhere else while it runs.
- You are not sure you have the right to share the data. Your company stands behind its data, and what it could owe if it is wrong is limited only if a cap is added in the rider.
- Most of what you hold belongs to someone else, such as client work, material a client gave you or customer data held under contract.
- Your company works in defence, or is a law firm or an audit firm. Our fit guide leaves those out.
- You work in healthcare, financial services or another regulated sector. Take advice on what could go in at all.
- You would want the data back later. An AI model that has learned from it cannot unlearn it, and deals already signed carry on after the agreement ends.
- The company is being wound down or is insolvent. Our fit guide is for companies that are still trading.
- There is a buyer you could not accept having your data, and you cannot get that buyer excluded in your rider.
- You would not be comfortable telling your staff and your customers that you had done it.
Whether your company fits at all is a separate question. Our fit guide is a company that is still trading, with 50 or more staff, a few years of history and its work kept mainly in online tools.
The terms, one by one
Each term gives what the standard agreement says, what that means for your company, and what to ask your lawyer.
The money
Your right to check the sums
Says: You have a yearly right to check how your share was calculated.
Means: The check happens once a year, on notice, at the other side's offices, with other parties' confidential details blacked out. Nothing published says a statement comes with each payment, so ask for one in your rider, and ask what you would be shown at the check.
Ask your lawyer:
- How does the yearly right to check our share work, how far back does it reach, and will we get a statement with each payment?
How long it lasts and who can end it
Term and renewal
Says: The first term is 3 years. It then renews a year at a time unless either side gives notice at least 30 days before the period ends.
Means: Put the notice date in the diary on the day you sign. If it passes, the agreement runs for another year.
Exclusivity
Says: The rider, the short document written for your company, says whether the licence is exclusive. The licensing company says exclusivity is time-limited, has to be earned and has exit terms, and that non-exclusive terms can be agreed (its website, checked October 2026).
Means: While exclusivity applies, your company cannot license the same data anywhere else, but the data can still be licensed to more than one AI company. The same website also describes a rider term under which exclusivity falls away at your choice if an agreed minimum is not paid within the first year. That term lives in the rider, so get the minimum and the date written into yours.
Ask your lawyer:
- Is the licence exclusive in the version we have been sent, for how long, and what are the exit terms?
Who can end it
Says: The agreement runs for a fixed term. The other side can end it early without giving a reason. Your way out is to give notice at least 30 days before a renewal date.
Means: Plan on being in for the whole first term.
Ask your lawyer:
- Can the first term be shortened, or an exit added if no sale happens within a set time?
Dealing with buyers yourself
Says: Your company cannot deal directly, for this data, with a buyer the other side introduced or was in active discussions with. The bar lasts while the agreement runs and for a year after it ends.
Means: If one of those buyers approaches your company, you would have to turn it down until that period has passed.
What you control and what you do not
Choosing what goes in
Says: Your company chooses which data is in scope. The agreement sets stricter rules for ID, passport and driving licence numbers, dates of birth, account and card details and biometric data.
Means: Your company must look for those details, take them out or disclose them to the other side, and not knowingly deliver anything holding them without its written approval. HR and payroll folders, customer personal data and anything a client gave you in confidence should be discussed with your advisers before they go anywhere.
Ask your lawyer:
- Which parts of our data hold personal data about staff, customers or anyone else, and what must be in place under UK data protection law before we share them?
- Do we need to tell staff, customers or clients before data about them is included?
Control of scope
Says: The rider names the systems that are in scope and the ones left out. It can also give you a right to remove data from future deals, and list buyers you allow or rule out.
Means: These protections exist only if they are written into your rider. Check each one is there before you sign, and name any buyer you would not accept.
Ask your lawyer:
- Does our rider name the systems that are in and out, give us a right to remove data from future deals and list the buyers we want excluded?
How widely the data can be used
Says: The rights your company grants are wide. Buyers can use the data to train and test AI models and to build and sell products from the results. Buyers can pass those rights on to their own customers and service providers. A buyer deal can be signed without asking your company to approve each one.
Means: Any limit on buyers or uses has to be written into the rider before you sign.
Ask your lawyer:
- Does anything stop a buyer using our data to build a product that competes with ours?
Who owns what
Says: The agreement is a licence, so your company keeps ownership of its data. What buyers build from it belongs to them. The labels, notes and metadata the other side adds to your data belong to it.
Means: Owning the data gives your company no claim over an AI model or product built with it, and no right to restrict one.
Naming and publicity
Says: The licensing company says your company is never named publicly, and that buyers are told who you are only after an agreement is signed (its website, checked October 2026). Buyers will know who you are once a deal is agreed, and the agreement lets the other side mention the work in its own trade communications. If you need this in writing, ask for it in your agreement.
Means: The agreement binds your company too. Its terms are confidential, and your company needs the other side's approval for any public statement about the work, the other side or a buyer. Assume that people outside your company will learn it has licensed its data, and decide before you sign whether that is acceptable.
Ask your lawyer:
- What does the agreement say about who may name our company, and how do we get more than that in writing if we need it?
What your company promises
Your promises about the data
Says: Your company promises that it owns the data or has cleared the rights to it, that the data was lawfully collected and that no other agreement conflicts with the licence. If some data fails those promises, your company fixes or replaces it at its own cost, or refunds its share for that data.
Means: Before delivery, your company also lists in writing any material in the data that belongs to someone else, and the licences it relies on to include it. It also lists any earlier sale or licence of a large part of the data, and any part written by AI tools. It confirms the data is mostly written by people and that no open-source licence attaches to it. The refund is for the data that failed, not for everything your company was paid.
Ask your lawyer:
- Do we have the right to license each kind of data we plan to include, under our client contracts, confidentiality agreements and the terms of each tool?
- What exactly do we promise about the data, and can we keep each promise for every system in scope?
Standing behind the data
Says: You stand behind your data: you promise you have the right to license it and you cover the other side and its buyers if that turns out wrong. The cover also extends to losses that arise from buyers using the rights your company granted. A limit on that cover, and a matching promise from the other side, can be added in the rider.
Means: Lawyers call this an indemnity. Ask for a matching indemnity and a cap on both sides. The agreement also asks your company to add the other side to its relevant insurance policies. With no limit, a claim could cost your company more than the licence has earned it. Have your lawyer read this part first.
Ask your lawyer:
- Can a limit be added to what we could owe under the indemnity, and will the other side give us a matching indemnity?
- Does the agreement ask anything of our insurance, and will our insurer accept it?
Personal data
Says: Under the agreement, taking personal details out before delivery is your company's duty. It does the work itself, uses the other side or a vendor the other side names, or lists in writing what remains. For anything that remains, your company confirms it holds the notices and consents that allow it to be licensed.
Means: Expect to agree data protection and international transfer terms before any data leaves the UK. Transfer terms are the contract terms UK law can require before personal data is sent to another country. If someone else takes the personal details out, ask which firm does the work and in which country your data is processed. Also ask whether anyone keeps a key that could swap the labels back for the original details.
Ask your lawyer:
- Which data protection and international transfer terms should we agree before any data leaves the UK?
- Will we see and approve the de-identified package before it goes to any buyer, and is that written into the agreement?
Labels do not cover everything that could point to a person. So de-identified data can still count as personal data under UK data protection law. Your company stays responsible for having the right to share its data, and should take advice before it does.
The end of the agreement, a sale of the company and disputes
What carries on after it ends
Says: When the agreement ends, no new buyer deals are signed. Deals already signed carry on, and your company keeps receiving its share from them. The agreement sets when the raw dataset must be deleted and when future licensing can stop. Training permission does not automatically allow public release or resale of the raw data.
Means: An AI model that has already learned from your data cannot unlearn it, so treat anything that has been licensed as out for good. What an AI model produces cannot be fully controlled either.
Ask your lawyer:
- If the agreement ends, what happens to deals already signed and to our share from them?
- Does the agreement let the other side keep a copy of our data after it ends, and for what purposes?
If the company is sold
Says: The agreement has a term on how it can be transferred.
Means: If the business may be sold, check how the agreement transfers. Tell your lawyer now if a sale, a merger or new owners are likely during the term.
Ask your lawyer:
- What happens to the agreement if the company is sold, merges or changes owners during the term?
Disputes
Says: The agreement is with a company in the United States. Disputes go to mediation and then confidential arbitration.
Means: Ask your lawyer which country's law governs the version you are sent, where an arbitration would be held and what a dispute could cost.
Ask your lawyer:
- Does the agreement limit our remedies to money damages, and do we give up the right to ask a court to stop a buyer misusing our data?
- Which law governs the agreement, and can you advise on it, or do we need a lawyer in that country as well?
Sources for every term: the standard agreement and the licensing company's public explanation of it, checked October 2026.
Where each dollar of a licence fee goes
Figures are in US dollars, as the agreement sets them. We do not convert them to pounds.
The licensing company's standard agreement, checked October 2026
Of every $100,000 in licence fees collected for your data, $60,000 is your company's share. That sum shows the split and nothing more. It is not an estimate, and we hold no record of what any company has earned from business data.
The licensing company says its estimates show your company's earnings after its own share, across an assumed 4 licence deals in the first year (its website, checked October 2026). The range on the home page comes from that estimator, so it already shows your company's share, not the whole licence fee.
Before any money reaches your company, 4 things happen in this order.
- An AI company agrees a licence for your data.
- The buyer confirms in writing that it accepts the data.
- The buyer pays the licence fee.
- Under the standard agreement, your company is paid its share within 45 days of that fee being received.
Nobody can tell you when the first of those will happen, or whether it will. Outside the US, amounts under $2,500 are held until your share passes that figure. Before you sign, ask for one example of a company that has been paid for its business data. Ask how much that company was paid, how many sales there were and how long the first payment took to arrive after signing.
The licensing company says it charges your company no fees and no set-up costs (its website, checked October 2026). Your company still pays for its own lawyer and its team's time.
We are an independent business, not part of the licensing company. We introduce companies to the licensing company, and it pays us when a company we introduced earns licence fees. Your company pays us nothing.
Questions for your lawyer
The questions beside each term print as one list for the lawyer who reads the agreement. Each answer depends on your company and on the version you are sent, so we cannot answer them for you.
- Which fees paid by a buyer sit outside the split, and how would we know what they were?
- How does the yearly right to check our share work, how far back does it reach, and will we get a statement with each payment?
- Is the licence exclusive in the version we have been sent, for how long, and what are the exit terms?
- Can the first term be shortened, or an exit added if no sale happens within a set time?
- Which parts of our data hold personal data about staff, customers or anyone else, and what must be in place under UK data protection law before we share them?
- Do we need to tell staff, customers or clients before data about them is included?
- Does our rider name the systems that are in and out, give us a right to remove data from future deals and list the buyers we want excluded?
- Does anything stop a buyer using our data to build a product that competes with ours?
- What does the agreement say about who may name our company, and how do we get more than that in writing if we need it?
- Do we have the right to license each kind of data we plan to include, under our client contracts, confidentiality agreements and the terms of each tool?
- What exactly do we promise about the data, and can we keep each promise for every system in scope?
- Can a limit be added to what we could owe under the indemnity, and will the other side give us a matching indemnity?
- Does the agreement ask anything of our insurance, and will our insurer accept it?
- Which data protection and international transfer terms should we agree before any data leaves the UK?
- Will we see and approve the de-identified package before it goes to any buyer, and is that written into the agreement?
- If the agreement ends, what happens to deals already signed and to our share from them?
- Does the agreement let the other side keep a copy of our data after it ends, and for what purposes?
- What happens to the agreement if the company is sold, merges or changes owners during the term?
- Does the agreement limit our remedies to money damages, and do we give up the right to ask a court to stop a buyer misusing our data?
- Which law governs the agreement, and can you advise on it, or do we need a lawyer in that country as well?
Ask your accountant how licence fees paid from the United States would be taxed.
www.arclinedata.com/terms#lawyer-questions14 October 2026