R datasets ownership(copyright) and license
I somewhat agree with Spencer -- as I have mentioned, the recent precedence with tz database shows that such claims would not be taken as ungrounded right away and things could easily go all the way to court -- and that might be a really costly endeavor regardless who is right or wrong. ?Proving that data is factual, and not fictional/creative/original might be another challenge in quite a few cases I bet.
I think it's generally easy to tell if something is a fact or not, and I doubt any of the datasets in R are fictional. Hadley
Assistant Professor / Dobelman Family Junior Chair Department of Statistics / Rice University http://had.co.nz/