CC0 use for data
CC0 (read “CC Zero”) is a universal waiver that may be used by anyone wishing to permanently surrender the copyright and database rights they may have in a work, thereby placing it as nearly as possible into the public domain. CC0 is not a license, but a legal tool that improves on the “dedication” function of our existing, 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 is particularly relevant to data. Databases may contain facts that, in and of themselves, are not protected by copyright law. The copyright laws of some jurisdictions cover database design and structure, however, and some jurisdictions like the European Union have enacted special laws to protect databases when they are not protected under applicable copyright law. CC0 is intended to cover all copyright and database laws, so that however database rights are protected (under copyright or otherwise), those rights are all waived. 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 with Norms
Polar Information Commons
The Polar Information Commons, a data sharing project using data from the most recent International Polar Year, have enabled two options for researchers to badge their polar data: the CC0 public domain waiver or CC BY. For those sharing their data under either the waiver or CC BY, the Polar Information Commons has outlined Ethics and Norms of Data Sharing. For more info, see the blog post.
Sage Commons
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 waiver as an option for waiving copyright restrictions to data hosted in the network. The SageCite project, driven by UKOLN, the University of Manchester, and the British Library, is going to develop and test an entire framework for citation norms, not attribution, using bioinformatics as a test case.
CC0 use without Norms
Cologne-based Libraries
All bibliographic data from Cologne-based libraries are available to the public with no known copyright restrictions. Cologne-based libraries who waived their copyrights using the CC0 public domain waiver 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
All content on Digg, a social news website, is defaulted under CC0, which means that Digg has waived all copyright restrictions 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.
Flickr
Flickr published its shapefile dataset online, waiving all copyright restrictions via the CC0 public domain waiver. 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.
GlaxoSmithKline (GSK)
One of the leading pharmaceutical companies in the world, GlaxoSmithKline has waived all copyright restrictions to its malarial data set via CC0, which includes more than 13,500 compounds known to be active against malaria.
MichiganView
Using CC0, MichiganView has waived all copyright restrictions 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.
Netherlands Government
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 waiver, the government waived all copyright restrictions for the 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.
OpenJurist.org
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
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.
Proteome Commons Tranche Network
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 waiver as the default uploading option for users.
Public.resource.org
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 waived all copyright restrictions to the case law using the CC0 public domain waiver.
Talis Connected Commons
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 waiver.
WisconsinView
Using CC0, WisconsinView has waived all copyright restrictions to 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.
