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2026

Archived version 1 of 2. This is how the model read before it was corrected. It is shown read only. The current version is here.

ODC Open Database License (ODbL)

Also known as ODbL 1.0, ODbL v1.0.

Commercial use
the record does not say
Share alike
required
Attribution
required (keep the copyright and license notices)
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Canonical URI https://dalicc.net/licenselibrary/OdcOpenDatabaseLicense

Permissions

  • Derivative works from the text Distributing an adaptation of the work and making it available to the public.
  • Derive from the text Creating a new work from the work, such as a translation, adaptation or arrangement of it or of a part of it.

    Duties

    • Attribution from the text Giving credit to the copyright holders or authors of the work, in the form the licensor asks for.
    • Modification notice from the text Marking a changed work as changed, saying how it differs from the original and keeping earlier notices of change.
    • Notice from the text Notice: keeping the license and copyright notices with every copy.
  • Display from the text Showing the work to the public without making a copy the viewer keeps.
  • Distribute from the text Providing copies of the work to the public or to anyone else.

    Duties

    • Attribution from the text Giving credit to the copyright holders or authors of the work, in the form the licensor asks for.
    • Notice from the text Notice: keeping the license and copyright notices with every copy.
  • Modified works from the text Distributing a modified version of the work that does not amount to a new, derivative work.
  • Modify from the text Altering the work, for example by updating it, without creating a new work; an alteration that creates a new work is Derive.

    Duties

    • Attribution from the text Giving credit to the copyright holders or authors of the work, in the form the licensor asks for.
    • Modification notice from the text Marking a changed work as changed, saying how it differs from the original and keeping earlier notices of change.
    • Notice from the text Notice: keeping the license and copyright notices with every copy.
  • Present from the text Performing the work in public, including by broadcast or other communication to the public.
  • Reproduce from the text Making copies of the work in any form.

Prohibitions

  • Change license from the text Not permitted: Change license. Replacing the license of the work, or of an adaptation, with another license, or changing its terms.
  • Charge distribution fee from the text Not permitted: Charge distribution fee. Charging a fee for the act of providing a copy of the work to someone else.

License-wide duties

  • Share alike from the text Adaptations have to be licensed under the same license or one the license names as compatible.

Clauses

Warranty disclaimer

The Database is licensed by the Licensor “as is” and without any warranty of any kind, either express, implied, or arising by statute, custom, course of dealing, or trade usage. Licensor specifically disclaims any and all implied warranties or conditions of title, non-infringement, accuracy or completeness, the presence or absence of errors, fitness for a particular purpose, merchantability, or otherwise. Some jurisdictions do not allow the exclusion of implied warranties, so this exclusion may not apply to You.

Limitation of liability

Subject to any liability that may not be excluded or limited by law, the Licensor is not liable for, and expressly excludes, all liability for loss or damage however and whenever caused to anyone by any use under this License, whether by You or by anyone else, and whether caused by any fault on the part of the Licensor or not. This exclusion of liability includes, but is not limited to, any special, incidental, consequential, punitive, or exemplary damages such as loss of revenue, data, anticipated profits, and lost business. This exclusion applies even if the Licensor has been advised of the possibility of such damages. If liability may not be excluded by law, it is limited to actual and direct financial loss to the extent it is caused by proved negligence on the part of the Licensor.

Info

Target asset types
Dataset
Region / jurisdiction
Worldwide
Validity
Perpetual
Legal code
https://opendatacommons.org/licenses/odbl/1.0/
This description is published under
https://dalicc.net/licenselibrary/CC-BY-4.0
Publisher
Socialtext Incorporated
SPDX identifier
ODbL-1.0 (provisional, the record declares none)
DALICC identifier
OdcOpenDatabaseLicense

This record is published under CC BY 4.0. Credit it as: DALICC License Library, DALICC - Verein zur Förderung der Rechtssicherheit in der Datenbewirtschaftung, https://dalicc.net, CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). The license it describes belongs to its publisher.

History

This license model has 2 versions. Version 2 is the one served today; every earlier version keeps its own address, so a conclusion drawn from one of them can still be checked against it.

  1. Version 2 current2026-09-24 Giray Havur

    The content review of 2026-09-15 added 1 identification detail, 1 permission and 2 prohibitions, changed 1 identification detail and recorded the review state. Later changes brought it in line with its family and its text in the verification of 2026-09-15, recorded which sentence of the text each statement rests on, recorded what the text says about the database right and named the license the record itself is published under.

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    19 changes

    • added dalicc:reviewStatus dalicc:Reviewed

      Review state Every record records how far it has come in the editorial workflow and when it was last checked against the legal text.

    • added dalicc:reviewedOn "2026-09-15"^^xsd:date

      Review state Every record records how far it has come in the editorial workflow and when it was last checked against the legal text.

    • changed dct:title "ODC Open Database License (ODbL)"

      was dct:title "ODC Open Database License (ODbL) "

      Review finding The title literal ended with a trailing blank, "ODC Open Database License (ODbL) ". Removed.

    • added permission cc:CommercialUse

      Review finding cc:CommercialUse was missing. Section 3.1: "These rights explicitly include commercial use, and do not exclude any field of endeavour." Without it the record read as if the licence were silent on commercial use, and the compatibility outcome against any NonCommercial licence was wrong. Added.

    • added prohibition dalicc:promote

      Review finding dalicc:promote was missing although Section 2.3(c) states: "This License does not cover any trademarks associated with the Database." The two sibling records of the family, ODC-By and PDDL, both carry the prohibition on the identical clause. Added.

    • added prohibition dalicc:sublicense

      Review decision Review decision 1: every Creative Commons record except the CC0 dedication, plus the Open Database License and the Open Data Commons Attribution License, forbids sublicensing in as many words.

    • added spdx:licenseId "ODbL-1.0"

      Review finding The record carried no SPDX identifier. Its cc:legalcode, https://opendatacommons.org/licenses/odbl/1.0/, is the seeAlso URL of the SPDX entry ODbL-1.0, and the fetched text is headed "Open Data Commons Open Database License (ODbL) v1.0". The proposal file rated this medium; the version in the document confirms it. Added.

    • added dalicc:additionalClauses "The Derivative Database (under a.) or alteration file (under b.) must be available at no more than a reasonable production cost for physical distributions and free of charge if distributed over the internet. b. Parallel distribution. You may impose terms or technological measures on the Database, a Derivative Database, or the whole or a Substantial part of the Contents (a “Restricted Database”) in contravention of Section 4.7 a. only if You also make a copy of the Database or a Derivative Database available to the recipient of the Restricted Database: i. That is available without additional fee."

      Manual edit The review's finding on family consistency: the record prohibited dalicc:chargeDistributionFee although the ODbL nowhere forbids charging for a copy. What it does is cap the price of the copy that has to accompany a Restricted Database and of the derivative database file, and those two sentences are now quoted instead; dct:source was missing.

    • added dct:source <https://opendatacommons.org/licenses/odbl/1.0/>

      Manual edit The review's finding on family consistency: the record prohibited dalicc:chargeDistributionFee although the ODbL nowhere forbids charging for a copy. What it does is cap the price of the copy that has to accompany a Restricted Database and of the derivative database file, and those two sentences are now quoted instead; dct:source was missing.

    • removed prohibition dalicc:chargeDistributionFee

      Manual edit The review's finding on family consistency: the record prohibited dalicc:chargeDistributionFee although the ODbL nowhere forbids charging for a copy. What it does is cap the price of the copy that has to accompany a Restricted Database and of the derivative database file, and those two sentences are now quoted instead; dct:source was missing.

    • changed permission cc:CommercialUse

      was permission cc:CommercialUse

      Manual edit The statement now quotes the sentence of the licence text it rests on: "These rights explicitly include commercial use, and do not exclude any field of endeavour."

    • changed prohibition dalicc:promote

      was prohibition dalicc:promote

      Manual edit The statement now quotes the sentence of the licence text it rests on: "This License does not cover any trademarks associated with the Database."

    • changed prohibition dalicc:sublicense

      was prohibition dalicc:sublicense

      Manual edit The statement now quotes the sentence of the licence text it rests on: "You may not sublicense the Database."

    • changed dct:publisher "Open Data Commons (Open Knowledge Foundation)"

      was dct:publisher "Socialtext Incorporated"

      Manual edit The ODbL is published by Open Data Commons, a project of the Open Knowledge Foundation; the earlier value named the publisher of another licence.

    • added permission dalicc:suiGenerisDatabaseRights with duties [cc:Attribution, cc:Notice]

      Manual edit Section 3.1 grants the rights "for the duration of any applicable copyright and Database Rights", and the licence defines Database Rights as the sui generis right of the Database Directive, so the permission is text-supported. The attribution and notice conditions of Section 4 apply to it as they apply to every use of the Database.

    • changed permission odrl:derive with duties [cc:Attribution, cc:Notice]

      was permission odrl:derive with duties [cc:Attribution, cc:Notice, dalicc:modificationNotice]

      Manual edit No sentence of the text asks for a notice of changes; the alteration file of Section 4.6(b) is an alternative way to give access to a Derivative Database.

    • changed permission odrl:modify with duties [cc:Attribution, cc:Notice]

      was permission odrl:modify with duties [cc:Attribution, cc:Notice, dalicc:modificationNotice]

      Manual edit No sentence of the text asks for a notice of changes; the alteration file of Section 4.6(b) is an alternative way to give access to a Derivative Database.

    • removed prohibition dalicc:promote

      Manual edit The sentence the prohibition rested on, "This License does not cover any trademarks associated with the Database.", is silence about endorsement, which the default rule of the core dependency graph covers.

    • added dct:license <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/>

      Manual edit Every record is published under CC BY 4.0. cc:license names the record DALICC keeps of that licence; dct:license now names it by the address Creative Commons publishes it at, so that a consumer matching the canonical IRI finds it.

  2. Version 1

    The version this model had before the content review of 2026-09-15.

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Every change names the reason behind it: a finding of the content review, one of its library-wide decisions, the metadata that review wrote onto every record, or a hand edit. None of it is legal advice.

Nothing on this page is legal advice. What a license means is decided by its text; ask a legal advisor before you rely on it.