CC0 use for data

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CC0 (read “CC Zero”) is a universal public domain dedication that may be used by anyone wishing to permanently surrender the copyright and database rights (where they exist) they may have in a work, thereby placing it as nearly as possible into the public domain. CC0 is a legal tool that improves on the “dedication” function of our earlier, U.S.-centric public domain dedication and certification. CC0 is universal in form and may be used throughout the world for any kind of content without adaptation to account for laws in different jurisdictions. And like our licenses, CC0 has the benefit of being expressed in three ways – legal code, a human readable deed, and machine-readable code that allows works distributed under CC0 to be easily found.

CC0 can be particularly important for the sharing of data and databases, since it otherwise may be unclear whether highly factual data and databases are restricted by copyright or other rights. Databases may contain facts that, in and of themselves, are not protected by copyright law. However, the copyright laws of many jurisdictions cover creatively selected or arranged compilations of facts and creative database design and structure, and some jurisdictions like those in the European Union have enacted additional sui generis laws that restrict uses of databases without regard for applicable copyright law. CC0 is intended to cover all copyright and database rights, so that however data and databases are restricted (under copyright or otherwise), those rights are all surrendered. CC0 is also particularly relevant to scientific data. An opinion piece in Nature on "Post-publication sharing of data and tools" explicitly recommends open sharing and the use of CC0 to put data in the public domain:

"Although it is usual practice for major public databases to make data freely available to access and use, any restrictions on use should be strongly resisted and we endorse explicit encouragement of open sharing, for example under the newly available CC0 public domain waiver of Creative Commons."

CC0 use cases

This is a list of uses of CC0 for data and databases. For uses of CC licenses, see Data and CC Licenses.

BioMed Central

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BioMed Central (BMC) is one of the largest open access (OA) publishers in the world with 250 peer-reviewed OA journals, and more than 100,000 OA articles published yearly. BMC is also long-time user of CC licenses to accomplish its mission of husbanding and promoting open science. BMC has been publishing articles under a CC license since 2004. Starting September 3, 2013, in keeping with its forward-looking mission, BMC started requiring a CC0 Public Domain Dedication for data supporting the published articles.

The British Library

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The British Library released a large set of their bibliographic data into the public domain via the CC0 public domain dedication. This set is from the British National Bibliography, which contains data on publishing activity from the United Kingdom and the Republic of Ireland since 1950, and comprises 20% of the entire British Library catalog. The dataset currently consists of 3 million individual records.

CERN Library

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CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research that is home to the Large Hadron Collider and birthplace of the web, released its book catalog into the public domain using the CC0 public domain dedication.

Cologne-based Libraries

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All bibliographic data from Cologne-based libraries are available to the public with no known copyright restrictions. Cologne-based libraries who surrendered their copyrights using the CC0 public domain dedication include the University and Public Library of Cologne (USB), the Library of the Academy of Media Arts Cologne, the University Library of the University of Applied Science of Cologne, and the LBZ. The data is currently linked from the North Rhine-Westphalian Library Service Center (hbz). For more info, see the blog post.

Digg

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All content on Digg, a social news website, is defaulted under CC0, which means that Digg has surrendered all copyrights to its content. Content includes readers' comments, story titles, story descriptions, and all of the other user-contributed content on the Digg site. For more info, see the blog post.

Digital Public Library of America

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The DPLA is committed to asserting no new rights—and will claim no rights—over the metadata that it aggregates from its various data-providing partners. It has also pledged to make all of this metadata freely available under the CC0 Public Domain Dedication.

Dryad

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Dryad is an online repository for data contained in academic papers and other publications in the sciences. The National Evolutionary Synthesis Center and the University of North Carolina Metadata Research Center, in partnership with various journals and societies, comprise the development of Dryad's data set, all of which is released under the CC0 public domain dedication.

European Library

The European Library has released ~82 million bibliographic records from 25 member libraries into the public domain under CC0.

European Union

The European Commission released licensing recommendations to support the reuse of public sector information in Europe. In addition to providing guidance on baseline license principles for public sector content and data, the guidelines suggest that Member States should adopt standardized open licenses – such as Creative Commons licenses. "Open standard licences, for example the most recent Creative Commons (CC) licences (version 4.0), could allow the re-use of PSI without the need to develop and update custom-made licences at national or sub-national level. Of these, the CC0 public domain dedication is of particular interest. As a legal tool that allows waiving copyright and database rights on PSI, it ensures full flexibility for re-users and reduces the complications associated with handling numerous licences, with possibly conflicting provisions."

Europeana

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Europeana — Europe’s digital library, museum and archive, and the first major adopter of the Public Domain Mark — has adopted a new Data Exchange Agreement which releases metadata for millions of cultural works into the public domain using the CC0 public domain dedication.

FigShare

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Researchers can publish their data on FigShare in a "citable, searchable, and shareable manner." According to FigShare's FAQ, "All figures, media and multiple file uploads are published under a CC BY license. All datasets are published under CC0."

Flickr

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Flickr published its shapefile dataset online, surrendering all copyrights via the CC0 public domain dedication. A shapefile is a file containing shapes mathematically generated by thousands of Flickr geotagged photos of particular neighborhoods, countries, and continents. Shapefile data has been used to reverse-engineer maps with user generated longitude and latitude coordinates that are then demarcated by Where-On-Earth IDs, "unique numeric identifiers that correspond to the hierarchy of places where a photo was taken: the neighbourhood, the town, the county, and so on up to the continent." For more information, see the blog post.

Genomes Unzipped

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Genomes Unzipped is a project that aims to inform the public about genetics via the independent analysis of open genetic data, volunteered by a core group of genetics researchers and specialists. Genomes Unzipped genetic data is available in the public domain via the CC0 public domain dedication, while other site content is defaulted under CC BY-SA.

German National Library

The German National Library has begun publishing its standard data as public domain using the CC0 public domain dedication tool.

German Wikipedia

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The German Wikipedia uses CC0 to dedicate data into the public domain; specifically, their PND-BEACON files are available for download. Since Wikipedia links out to quite a number of external resources, and since a lot of articles link to the same external resources, PND-BEACON files are the German Wikipedia’s way of organizing the various data.

GlaxoSmithKline (GSK)

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One of the leading pharmaceutical companies in the world, GlaxoSmithKline has surrendered all copyrights in its malarial data set via CC0, which includes more than 13,500 compounds known to be active against malaria.

Harvard Library

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Harvard Library has released 12 million catalog records into the public domain using CC0, in accordance with it Open Metadata Policy. Its FAQ explains why.

Hypothesis

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By default, all public contributions (annotations) made with the Hypothes.is open annotation tool are dedicated to the public domain via the CC0 Public Domain Dedication. Hypothes.is' TOU covers this policy in more detail.

National Library of Spain

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datos.bne.es is a joint project of Ontology Engineering Group (OEG) and the National Library of Spain, for the enrichment of the Semantic Web with bibliographic data from their catalog. This initiative has been launched with the publication, in accordance with the principles of Linked Data, information from library catalogs and authority, making knowledge bases available as RDF (Resource Description Framework). Furthermore, these data are interrelated with other existing knowledge bases in the Linking Open Data initiative. Thus, Spain is in addition to projects that other institutions like the British Library and the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek have recently begun. The 2.4 million bibliographic records are published according to the specifications and conditions of the Creative Commons Zero (CC0).


Italian Piemonte Regional Government

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The Piemonte Regional Government in Italy has adopted the CC0 public domain dedication for its open data portal (dati.piemonte.it). The Piemonte Region is leading the open data movement in Italy at the government level, being the only regional government to open up all its data for reuse without restrictions.

MichiganView

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Using CC0, MichiganView has surrendered all copyrights to its 93+ Gigabytes of Landsat 5 and 7, and NAIP imagery data. The MichiganView consortium makes available aerial photography and satellite imagery of Michigan to the public for free over the Web. As part of the AmericaView consortium, MichiganView supports access and use of these imagery collections through education, workforce development, and research. For more info, see the blog post.

Nature Publishing Group linked data

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Nature Publishing Group (NPG) provides access to its publication data via the linked data platform at http://data.nature.com. The platform includes more than 20 million Resource Description Framework (RDF) statements, including primary metadata for more than 450,000 articles published by NPG since 1869. The datasets include basic citation information (title, author, publication date, etc) as well as NPG specific ontologies. These datasets are released under Creative Commons Zero (CC0), which permits maximal use/re-use of this data. Nature's Scientific Data publication also announced it would release all machine-readable metadata accompanying Data Descriptor articles under CC0 to enable advanced users to mine and search our content without legal ambiguity.

Netherlands Government

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The Netherlands government launched www.rijksoverheid.nl, a single website for all Dutch ministries, in March 2010. The default copyright policy for site content is that there is no copyright; using the CC0 public domain dedication, the government surrendered all copyrights in site. The purpose of www.rijksoverheid.nl is to establish one central location or portal through which all government organizations and ministries can be accessed by the public. The migration process is currently underway. For more info, see the blog post.

NYPL Bibliographic Metadata and Cartographic Works

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NYPL's bibliographic metadata records provided through the NYPL Repository API are distributed under a Creative Commons CC0 1.0 Universal Public Domain Dedication. Although the bibliographic metadata records are provided consistent with CC0 1.0 Dedication, the content described by the metadata records is not. Content may be subject to copyright, rights of privacy, rights of publicity and other restrictions. The Lionel Pincus & Princess Firyal Map Division of NYPL has also released more than 20,000 cartographic works as high resolution downloads using CC0.

Open Clinical Innovation Network

The Open Clinical Innovation Network seeks to transform clinical research and development by openly sharing clinical tools and data via the CC0 public domain dedication, thereby enabling open innovation. More from the announcement. Still in its initial stages, you can read the white paper (pdf) and check out its first tool, Clinical Commons.

Open Library

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An initiative of the Internet Archive, the Open Library is an online catalog that aims to provide a web page for every book ever published. Drawing from existing library catalogs around the world and user contributions, the Open Library has 20 million records to date and provides access to 1.7 million scanned books. All rights to Open Library data are surrendered via CC0.

OpenEI

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An initiative of the U.S. Department of Energy, OpenEI is a linked open data platform that releases all contributions to the public under the CC0 public domain dedication. It is a community effort devoted to assembling the world's most comprehensive collection of energy information--including datasets, tools, and models.

OpenJurist.org

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Using CC0, OpenJurist, a resource for case law in the U.S., has made available all Supreme Court and Federal Appellate Court Decisions from the 1700s to the current day.

Personal Genome Project

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The Personal Genome Project, a pioneer in the emerging field of personal genomics technology, released a large data set containing genomic sequences for ten individuals using CC0, with future planned releases also to be under CC0.

Polar Information Commons

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The Polar Information Commons, a data sharing project growing out of the most recent International Polar Year, has enabled researchers to release their polar data into the public domain using the CC0 public domain dedication. For those sharing their data, the Polar Information Commons has outlined Ethics and Norms of Data Sharing.

Proteome Commons Tranche Network

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Proteome Commons Tranche Network, a public proteomics database for annotations and other information that uses Tranche, a free and open source (Apache 2.0) file storage and dissemination software, has enabled the CC0 public domain dedication as the default uploading option for users.

Public.resource.org

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1.8 million pages of U.S. Courts of Appeals decisions (since 1950 onwards) were delivered back into the public domain by public.resource.org, who officially surrendered all copyrights in the case law using the CC0 public domain dedication.

Research Libraries UK (RLUK)

"The data provided by RLUK will additionally be made available as Linked Open Data. This is part of The European Library's aim of working with its members to expose a set of their combined bibliographic metadata as a CC0 dataset - a dataset openly available for any type of reuse. RLUK's valuable data will now be integrated into the larger European Library set, thereby providing a rich source of reusable knowledge from Europe's most prestigious libraries." -- http://www.theeuropeanlibrary.org/tel4/newsitem/2450

Safecast

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Safecast releases radiation data from the fallout in Fukushima under CC0.

Sage Bionetworks - Sage Commons

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Sage Commons is a public resource and information platform for scientists, research foundations, and research institutions to share and develop human disease and biological research. Sage Commons will enable the CC0 public domain dedication as an option for surrendering copyright in data hosted in the network. The SageCite project, driven by UKOLN, the University of Manchester, and the British Library, and funded by JISC, is set to develop and test an entire framework for citation norms, not attribution, using bioinformatics as a test case.

SCOAP3 Repository

"The repository will also make available the corresponding metadata, under a CC0 license. Metadata will include of course the article DOIs and the ORCID IDs of all authors, when available."

Smithsonian Cooper-Hewitt Museum

The Smithsonian Cooper-Hewitt Museum has released its collection data into the public domain using CC0.

SimpleGeo

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http://blog.simplegeo.com/2011/04/20/open-places-data/

Swedish National Library

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The Swedish National Library signed an agreement in September 2011 that released the Swedish National Bibliography and authority files into the public domain using the CC0 public domain dedication.

Talis Connected Commons

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The Talis Connected Commons is a project by Talis that works to encourage the growth of public domain data. Talis offers free data hosting on its platform as long as the data is made available under either the Open Data Commons Public Domain Dedication or the CC0 public domain dedication.

University of Florida Library

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The University of Florida Smathers Libraries has implemented a default public domain policy for all of its original catalog data. The library has released its book catalog into the public domain using the CC0 public domain dedication tool, opening up downstream reuse of the data without restrictions.

University of Michigan Library

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The University of Michigan Library has surrendered all copyright in its Open Access bibliographic records via CC0. As of November 17, 2010, the Library released 684,597 bibliographic records into the public domain. The Library also defaults all of its site content under the most open CC license - CC BY.

WisconsinView

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Using CC0, WisconsinView has surrendered all copyrights in its 6+ Terabytes of imagery data. The WisconsinView consortium makes available aerial photography and satellite imagery of Wisconsin to the public for free over the Web. As part of the AmericaView consortium, WisconsinView supports access and use of these imagery collections through education, workforce development, and research. For more info, see the blog post.

Université de Montréal Biodiversity Centre

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The Université de Montréal Biodiversity Centre has published its datasets at Canadensys via the CC0 public domain dedication, and encourages the rest of the Canadensys community to do the same.

U.S. Food and Drug Administration

openFDA is a "new initiative in the Food and Drug Administration’s Office of Informatics and Technology Innovation spearheaded by FDA’s Chief Health Informatics Officer. OpenFDA offers easy access to FDA public data and highlight projects using these data in both the public and private sector to further regulatory or scientific missions, educate the public, and save lives." According to openFDA's TOU, "Unless otherwise noted, the content, data, documentation, code, and related materials on openFDA is public domain and made available with a Creative Commons CC0 1.0 Universal dedication."

U.S. Government Data

U.S. Open Data Action plan is under CC0 + some federal datasets: report (pdf); blog post

Wikidata

"Wikidata is a free knowledge base that can be read and edited by humans and machines alike. It is for data what Wikimedia Commons is for media files: it centralizes access to and management of structured data, such as interwiki references and statistical information. Wikidata contains data in all languages for which there are Wikimedia projects." All structured data from the main and property namespace is available via Creative Commons CC0. More info:

Other CC0 use cases

Mercy Corps

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Mercy Corps is a disaster relief organization that has released its package of office management materials (Office in a Box) into the public domain via CC0 for the start-up of new field offices in disaster areas and the improvement of operations in existing offices.

Open Clip Art Library

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All clip art packages generated and uploaded by the Open Clip Art Library community are free to use, distribute, and remix under the CC0 public domain dedication.