Dataset licensing options on DataStream
DataStream is a website for the open sharing of data. Data contributors maintain ownership of their data and control over what they choose to publish.
All datasets on DataStream are published under open data licenses, which provide clarity around data ownership, attribution and reuse.
There are three open data license options:
1. Attribution License (ODC-By) v1.0
You are free to share, copy, distribute, use, modify, transform, build upon, and produce works from the data as long as you attribute any public use of the data, or works produced from the data, in the manner specified in the license. For any use or redistribution of the data, or works produced from it, you must make clear to others the license of the data and keep intact any notices on the original data. Full legal text: https://opendatacommons.org/licenses/by/1.0/
Many groups we work with choose the Attribution license. This means that anyone accessing and using the data (for example, in a scientific study or other analysis) needs to provide attribution and cite where it came from. When the dataset is published on DataStream, there will be a recommended citation generated from the information provided.
The citation will look something like this:
Name of monitoring organization. Year. “Name of your dataset” (dataset). Version number. DataStream. DOI link*
*The DOI is a link to the dataset online that will not break over time
2. Public Domain Dedication and License (PDDL)
This licence places the data in the public domain (waiving all rights). The PDDL imposes no restrictions on your use of the PDDL licensed data. You are free to share, copy, distribute, use, modify, transform, build upon, and produce works from the data. Full legal text: https://opendatacommons.org/licenses/pddl/1.0/
This license means that you are placing the data in the public domain, and waiving any intellectual property rights. DataStream will still provide a recommended citation, but people are not obliged to cite use of the data.
3. Open Government License
This license is available to governments that have a pre-existing open data license. A url to the data license must be provided in the dataset level metadata.