Common license types for datasets

This license is one of the Open Data Commons licenses and is like a public domain dedication. It allows you, as a dataset owner, to use a license mechanism to surrender your rights in a dataset when you might not otherwise be able to dedicate your dataset to the public domain under applicable law. More details are available here.

This license is one of the open Creative Commons licenses and allows users to share and adapt your dataset so long as they give credit to you. More details are available here.

This Community Data License Agreement is similar to permissive open source licenses such as the MIT license. It allows users to use, modify and adapt your dataset and the data within it, and to share it. The CDLA-Permissive-2.0 terms explicitly do not impose any obligations or restrictions on results obtained from users’ computational use of the data. The 2.0 version is significantly shorter, uses plain language to express the grant of permissions and requirements. The only obligation is to "make available the text of this agreement with the shared Data," including the disclaimer of warranties and liability. More details are available here.

This license is one of the Open Data Commons licenses and allows users to share and adapt your dataset so long as they give credit to you. More details are available here.

This license is one of the open Creative Commons licenses and allows users to share and adapt your dataset so long as they give credit to you and distribute any additions, transformations or changes to your dataset under this license. We consider this license (a.k.a a viral license) problematic since others may decide not to work with your CC-BY-SA licensed dataset if there is risk that by doing so their work on your dataset will need to be shared under this license when they would rather use another license. More details are available here.

This license is one of the Community Data License Agreement licenses and was designed to embody the principles of "copyleft" in a data license. It allows users to use, modify and adapt your dataset and the data within it, and to share the dataset and data with their changes so long as they do so under the CDLA-Sharing and give credit to you. The CDLA-Sharing terms explicitly do not impose any obligations or restrictions on results obtained from users’ computational use of the data. More details are available here.

This license is one of the Open Data Commons licenses and allows users to share and adapt your dataset so long as they give credit to you and distribute any additions, transformation or changes to your dataset under this license. We consider this license (a.k.a a viral license) problematic since others may decide not to work with your ODC-ODbL licensed dataset if there is risk that by doing so their work on your dataset will need to be shared under this license when they would rather use another license. More details are available here.

This license is one of the more restrictive Creative Commons licenses. Users can share and adapt your dataset if they give credit to you and do not use your dataset for any commercial purposes. More details are available here.

This license is one of the more restrictive Creative Commons licenses. Users can share your dataset if they give credit to you, but they cannot make any additions, transformations or changes to your dataset under this license. More details are available here.

This license is one of the most restrictive Creative Commons licenses. Users can share your dataset only if they (1) give credit to you, (2) do not use your dataset for any commercial purposes, and (3) distribute any additions, transformations or changes to your dataset under this license. We consider this license a viral license since users will need to share their work on your dataset under this same license and any users of the adapted dataset would likewise need to share their work on the adapted dataset under this license and so on for any other changes to those modified datasets.

This license is one of the most restrictive Creative Commons licenses. Users can share only your unmodified dataset if they give credit to you and do not share it for commercial purposes. Users cannot make any additions, transformations or changes to your dataset under this license. More details are available here.

If a license is not listed in the data.world menu options, you may select Other and specify the details in the summary of your dataset.

No one can use, share, distribute, re-post, add to, transform or change your dataset if you have not specified a license.

These descriptions are only summaries of these licenses. For the actual text of the licenses, which we strongly encourage you to read, click on the links provided.

The work has been dedicated to the public domain by waiving all rights to the work worldwide under copyright law, including all related and neighboring rights, to the extent allowed by law.

You must give appropriate credit, provide a link to the license, and indicate if changes were made. You may do so in any reasonable manner, but not in any way that suggests the licensor endorses you or your use.

If you remix, transform, or build upon the material, you must distribute your contributions under the same license as the original.

You may not use the material for commercial purposes.

License applies to the database only and not its contents or data.

No Derivative Works. You may not alter, transform, or build upon this work.

All licenses that begin with CC-BY in the table above refer to version 4.0 of those licenses

Please submit a ticket if you have additional licensing questions.