# Public records vs licensable company data | SourceX

Canonical: https://refer.sourcex.si/guides/public-records-vs-licensable-company-data-referral
Last updated: 2026-11-04

No. Being able to see a business record, in a public portal, a review site or a court docket, does not give anyone permission to license it. Permission belongs to whoever created and holds the material, under its own contracts. A useful rule of thumb for partners: trace each record to its author. Records the company authored and keeps in its own systems may be licensable after review; records it can merely see, or that others wrote about it, are not the company's to license.

This page belongs to the guide on [de-identification versus permission to license](/guides/how-to-distinguish-de-identification-from-permission-to-license), which explains why removing names never creates a license. Here the job is practical: one fictional company, every record in its public footprint traced to an author, and the internal records behind them that could actually be discussed.

## One company, two layers of records

Illustrative and fictional. A 450-person commercial grounds and snow-removal contractor serves office parks, hospitals and municipalities across three states. A partner who advises the owner on succession notices how much about the company is public, and wonders whether that history is the opportunity.

It is not, and the reason is easiest to see by listing both layers side by side.

| Layer | Examples | Where they live |
|---|---|---|
| Public footprint | Municipal bid tabulations, customer reviews, a court filing from a slip-and-fall claim, project photos on the company website, a regulator's published inspection record | Public portals, review platforms, court dockets, the open web |
| The company's own records | Crew dispatch logs, storm-event decisions, client change requests, bid worksheets, incident reports, equipment maintenance logs | Field service software, estimating spreadsheets, email, the safety system |

The public layer is a thin summary of outcomes: who won a bid, what a customer felt, how a dispute was filed. The internal layer holds the work: why a crew was sent where, how a bid was priced, what changed when a storm arrived early.

## The rights trace, record by record

For each record, ask three questions: who authored it, who could grant use of it, and what sits behind it inside the company.

| Record | Visible to | Authored by | Could the contractor license it? | Its original inside the company |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Bid tabulation on a city portal | Anyone | The city's procurement office | No; the city prepared it | The contractor's bid worksheet and pricing notes |
| Customer reviews | Anyone | Individual reviewers, under the platform's terms | No; reviewers and the platform | The service ticket and the callback record for that site |
| Court filing in a slip-and-fall claim | Anyone | Lawyers for the parties; the court | No; and it contains personal data | The incident report and the de-icing log for that morning, subject to counsel |
| Project photos on the website | Anyone | The company's marketing team | Possibly, if client terms allow reuse | The full project file with change requests and crew notes |
| Regulator's published inspection record | Anyone | The regulator | No; the regulator authored it | The company's own corrective-action records |
| Storm-event dispatch decisions | Staff only | Dispatchers and supervisors | Possibly, after rights review | This is the original |

The pattern holds beyond grounds care. Almost every valuable record is in the last column, and almost none of it is public.

## Why being free to read is not being free to license

Two separate legal ideas get blended here, and both point the same way.

**Authorship comes first.** The U.S. Copyright Office explains that copyright exists from the moment a work is created and fixed, with registration generally voluntary. A bid tabulation written by a city or a review written by a customer belongs to its author from the start; publication does not move it to the company it describes.

**Facts and systems are not owned by anyone.** Circular 33 says copyright does not protect ideas, procedures, methods or systems, only original expression. That cuts against the public-records idea too: if a fact is free for everyone to read, no one, including the company, can grant meaningful exclusive rights in it. What a company can license is its own expression and records: its worksheets, logs, notes and decisions, held under its own contracts.

**Personal data stays personal when public.** The court filing names an injured person. The UK Information Commissioner's Office says there is no automatic exception from the right to be informed just because personal data is in the public domain. Public visibility does not lift privacy duties; it adds a third party whose interests the company cannot waive.

This is also why SourceX licenses approved business data directly from the company that holds the rights rather than collecting public material; the [comparison of licensing and scraping risk](/proof/data-licensing-vs-scraping-legal-risk) and the question [if AI training is fair use, why license data](/questions/if-ai-training-is-fair-use-why-license-data) cover the reasoning.

## Questions for the owner, at metadata level

Use public information to spot a likely fit, then move the conversation inside the company. Ask the owner or CFO, without requesting any records:

- **Which internal systems hold the originals?** Field service software, estimating files, email and the safety system, and how many years each covers.
- **Who authored them?** Staff work is usually the company's; material supplied by clients, subcontractors or franchisees may not be.
- **Do client contracts restrict reuse?** Municipal and hospital contracts often have confidentiality terms; that is a counsel question.
- **Who can authorize a licensing discussion?** The CEO, who in an owner-run company is usually the owner.
- **Is anything about to change?** A [founder retirement](/guides/a-founder-retirement) or a [CRM migration](/guides/a-crm-migration) can put the originals at risk.

The company also needs 50+ full-time employees at peak (contractors excluded), documented operating history, rights to license and an authorized contact. Companies in the U.S., Canada and the EU qualify, as do companies in the UK, Australia, New Zealand, India, Singapore, South Africa, Latin America, the UAE and Saudi Arabia when at least 70% of the data is in English. See [who qualifies](/who-qualifies). Corporate structure can matter too: [whether a public company's subsidiary can license data](/questions/can-subsidiary-public-company-license-data) covers that case.

## Where the boundary leaves a referral

What stays unknown until SourceX reviews it: whether the internal records survive rights review, what redaction applies, and whether buyers want them. A company whose only material is public or third-party content is likely to be declined; the guide to [why a referral was declined](/guides/how-to-understand-why-a-company-referral-was-declined) lists the common reasons. A company with a deep internal layer is the real introduction, whatever its public footprint looks like.

## Next step

> **Refer a company. No cap on rewards.** Default reward on a company's first qualifying transaction: the greater of $50,000 plus 5% and 15% of Actual Supplier Payout, with no cap; further qualifying transactions first agreed within 12 months of the first Closing pay 15%. Eligibility and payment conditions apply, including the USD 100,000 Minimum Transaction, and a signed Schedule A or addendum can differ. A lead, meeting or signature alone does not trigger payment.

If the company you advise authored and keeps the records behind its public footprint, [register as a partner](/register), check it against [who qualifies](/who-qualifies) and read the [program terms](/terms) before introducing its decision-maker.

## Sources

- https://www.copyright.gov/help/faq/faq-general.html
- https://www.copyright.gov/circs/circ33.pdf
- https://ico.org.uk/for-organisations/uk-gdpr-guidance-and-resources/individual-rights/the-right-to-be-informed/are-there-any-exceptions/
- https://refer.sourcex.si/terms