In the Hunt for Planets, Who Owns the Data?, NY Times

"On Tuesday, astronomers operating NASA's Kepler spacecraft will release a list of about 350 stars newly suspected of harboring planets, including five systems with multiple candidate planets. That data could dramatically swell the inventory of alien worlds, which now stands at 461, none of them habitable by the likes of us. ... But a lot of attention has been paid in astronomical circles over the past few months to what the Kepler team will not be saying. By agreement with NASA, the team is holding back data on its 400 brightest and best planet candidates, which the astronomers intend to observe themselves over abusy summer. ... The result has been a shift in the balance between the duty of a scientist to wring every last drop of truth and credibility out of the data he or she might have spent years gathering and the rights of the rest of us to know what our tax dollars have discovered."