Open Database License

Jordan Hatcher (Open Content Lawyer) and Dr. Charlotte Waelde (University of Edinburgh) have just published the first draft of the Open Data Commons, or the Open Database License. The new license was inspired by the Talis Community License (a draft open license for data from 2006) and its development has been sponsored by Talis.

The Database license limits itself to rights over databases – and hence does not cover rights in database content. A separate draft license, called the Factual Information License is intended to ensure that information that may not fall under the definition of a work in some juristictions is explicitly stated to be open. It stipulates:

2.4 Facts are free. The Licensor takes the position that factual information is not covered by copyright and neighbouring rights. This Licence grants you permission to Use the Work in jurisdictions that may protect the factual information in the Work by copyright, and to cover any other copyrighted information contained in the Work.

The new licenses certainly look to be the most well developed of the options discussed in our Guide to Open Data Licensing.

For further background information, see the Open Data home page at Open Content Lawyer and Paul Miller’s blog post on Nodalities.

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