So, the caveat to all of this is I'm actually in a field (epidemiology) where getting scooped matters less in many cases than it does for some others (math). G

So, the caveat to all of this is I'm actually in a field (epidemiology) where getting scooped matters less in many cases than it does for some others (math). Getting scooped doesn't just matter for high profile discoveries. The example I was thinking of is the graduate student's research asking "Does this thing the field is doing make sense?" That's a Yes or No answer. There's not a lot of interest once the question has been answered. Even if it can be published, it'll be a harder road, potentially finding itself in a less prestigious journal, etc. At worst, it's a write-off. Most graduate students are coming out with 2 or 3 paper dissertations, so the loss of one, or taking a hit on another one, can set someone behind, dramatically change the tenor of their job search, etc. "And to be clear, I'm not downplaying the importance of anyones contributions, but rather why the focus isn't shifted onto where data is sourced from? If someone used your data, shouldn't it be immediately obvious if they also have data publishing requirements? And if thats true, why isn't it a bigger faux pas to use another labs data before that lab has even published their paper on it?" I mean, it might not be the only thing that's been published on that data - that's the point. Once it's publicly available, it's publicly available, even if people are still working on it. Indeed, one of the "Data is available upon reasonable request" things is "We have a student working on this, could you not?" (another being "You're a crank, and we're not sending you this to misinterpret/misuse it"), but a lot of open data folks actively dislike that for obvious reasons.