Using data under a licence can become more complex when that data may be combined with data from other sources. The result may be a dataset with different licensing restrictions. The ability of licences to interact with other licences is called interoperability. Not all licences can accommodate different layers of protected work. Creative Commons licences are better at this than some other licences, and bespoke licences can present particular interoperability issues.
When choosing a licence for protected research data, it is necessary to consider how this might interact across the whole research data (including non-protected elements) and how it might interact with future derivative works produced from re-use or re-purposing.
OpenMinTeD has a useful matrix presenting the compatibility of different licences. Using two or more licences may require stacking of attribution of rights in the licensed work.