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2026

Fair License

Also known as Fair, Fair License.

Commercial use
allowed
Share alike
not required
Attribution
required (keep the copyright and license notices)
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Write this as a license text (needs an account) DALICC reads the model above and writes what it permits, requires and prohibits in plain English. Without an account, the Text download above writes the model out from the vocabulary.

Canonical URI https://dalicc.net/licenselibrary/Fair

Permissions

  • Change license by library convention Library convention: family rule 15: Permissive records permit relicensing. Replacing the license of the work, or of an adaptation, with another license, or changing its terms.

    Duties

    • Use a compliant license by library convention Library convention: family rule 15: Permissive records permit relicensing. Choosing a replacement license that stays compliant with the terms of the original license.
  • Charge distribution fee from the text Charging a fee for the act of providing a copy of the work to someone else.
  • Commercial use from the text Using the work to generate income, directly or indirectly, for example by selling it or by using it in advertising.
  • 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

    • 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

    • 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

    • 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

This license states no prohibitions.

License-wide duties

This license states no duties that apply to the work as a whole.

What applies by default

The statements above are the library's reading of this license: each is marked with the sentence it rests on, or as a library convention where the text is not explicit. The statements below are the ones the DALICC reasoner supplies for acts the license says nothing about, from the default rules of the dependency graph it reasons with. Each one names the legal source it rests on. None of it is in the record.

  • Promote by default rule (adopted) Using the name or trademarks of the licensor or of contributors to endorse or promote a product.

    This license says nothing about Promote, and the graph applies this reading in all jurisdictions it covers: it is not permitted unless the license permits it.

    A licence that says nothing about endorsement is read as not allowing it: the licence gives the licensee no right to use the licensor's name or marks in a way that states or implies that the licensor endorses the licensee or its product, while stating truthfully that a work is based on or uses the licensed work is a different act that this rule does not decide. A copyright licence grants rights in the work, and the right to use a name or a trademark is a separate right under trademark law and the protection of names, which a silent copyright licence does not pass on. Combining a licence that is silent about endorsement with one that permits it shows a conflict marked as coming from this rule.

    Basis Trademark and name rights are separate from copyright: Regulation (EU) 2017/1001 article 9 lets the proprietor of an EU trade mark prevent all third parties not having his consent from using the sign in the course of trade, and Directive (EU) 2015/2436 article 10, 15 U.S.C. 1114 and 1125(a), section 12 BGB and section 43 ABGB protect marks and names in the same way. The library's evidence is Creative Commons 4.0 section 2(b)(2): Patent and trademark rights are not licensed under this Public License. A copyright licence that is silent grants no right to use the licensor's name or marks to suggest endorsement (Worldwide)

Clauses

Warranty disclaimer

DISCLAIMER: THE WORKS ARE WITHOUT WARRANTY.

Info

Target asset types
Software
Region / jurisdiction
Worldwide
Validity
Perpetual
Source
https://spdx.org/licenses/Fair.html
Legal code
https://web.archive.org/web/20150926120323/http://fairlicense.org/
This description is published under
Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International
SPDX identifier
Fair on the SPDX license list
DALICC identifier
Fair

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.

Use this license

Everything below is generated from this record. Replace the example address with the address of your own work.

JSON sidecar 

{
  "license-uri": "https://dalicc.net/licenselibrary/Fair",
  "license-title": "Fair License",
  "spdx-id": "Fair",
  "asset": null,
  "generated-by": "DALICC"
}

RDF, Turtle 

@prefix cc: <http://creativecommons.org/ns#> .

<https://example.org/my-work>
    cc:license <https://dalicc.net/licenselibrary/Fair> .

RDF, JSON-LD 

{
  "@context": {
    "cc": "http://creativecommons.org/ns#"
  },
  "@id": "https://example.org/my-work",
  "cc:license": {
    "@id": "https://dalicc.net/licenselibrary/Fair"
  }
}

This license carries no attribution duty, so no credit line is offered here.

Badge DALICC badge for Fair License

Markdown 

[![License: Fair License](https://dalicc.net/license-library/Fair/badge.svg)](https://dalicc.net/license-library/Fair)

HTML 

<a href="https://dalicc.net/license-library/Fair"><img src="https://dalicc.net/license-library/Fair/badge.svg" alt="License: Fair License"></a>

Review

Written from the license text by
Giray Havur
Written on
2026-09-15
Second review
not yet done
Record changed since this review
yes (version 2, 2026-09-24)
Findings
9 recorded, 7 applied to the record, 0 proposed

The record models the Fair License, whose whole grant is one sentence: usage of the works is permitted as long as the license itself stays with them. The record reads that as the full permissive set, which is how the license is approved and used, with cc:Notice as the only duty and no attribution duty, because the text asks for the instrument and not for a credit.

9 findings

  • major Rubric 3 odrl:permission applied

    The whole grant reads: "Usage of the works is permitted provided that this instrument is retained with the works, so that any entity that uses the works is notified of this instrument." The record reads usage as the full permissive set (reproduce, distribute, modify, derive, display, present, commercial use, derivative works, modified works and the distribution fee), which is the reading under which the license was approved as an open source license. A narrower reading, in which only use is granted, would make the record incomparable with every other permissive license in the library.

  • major Rubric 5 odrl:duty applied

    cc:Notice on distribute, modify and derive: the instrument must be retained with the works. There is no cc:Attribution duty, because the text asks for the license text and not for a credit to the author, which is the one place where this license differs from the ISC form.

  • major Rubric 4 odrl:prohibition applied

    dalicc:ChangeLicense is prohibited because the text requires the license itself to travel with every copy, which is the reading IscLicense and BSD-3-Clause take of the same clause. The MIT record does not carry the prohibition although its text has the same requirement, so the library is not uniform here. (Corrected on 2026-09-15 by the verification pass: see the rubric 3 finding on relicensing below.)

  • minor Rubric 6 dalicc:WarrantyDisclaimer applied

    The disclaimer is one line, "DISCLAIMER: THE WORKS ARE WITHOUT WARRANTY.", quoted verbatim. There is no liability clause.

  • info Rubric 7 cc:jurisdiction none

    The text names no legal system and no term, so cc:jurisdiction is dalicc:worldwide and dalicc:validityType is dalicc:perpetual.

  • info Rubric 2 odrl:target applied

    One odrl:AssetCollection of dct:type dcmitype:Software, following MIT. The text says works rather than software. The SPDX kind is software and the license is used for software, so the target follows MIT; a reader who wants to license a text or a dataset with it should read the grant again.

  • info Rubric 9 record none

    The consistency check with the axioms of dg_default returned no conflicts.

  • minor Rubric 1 cc:legalcode applied

    fairlicense.org no longer resolves, so cc:legalcode points at the archived copy SPDX lists as the official URL, and dct:source at the SPDX page the text was taken from.

  • major Rubric 3 odrl:permission applied

    Library convention 15: a licence that asks for no reciprocity and no source code asks only that the notice travels with the copy, which is a duty on the acts it governs and not a bar on putting the copy under other terms. dalicc:ChangeLicense is therefore a permission here, and the prohibition the earlier reading wrote is removed. The text reads: "Usage of the works is permitted provided that this instrument is retained with the works, so that any entity that uses the works is notified of this instrument." The permission carries the dalicc:compliantLicense duty, as Apache-2.0 does, because the notice has to survive the relicensing.

Report an issue The review record as JSON The review checks the model against the license text. It is not legal advice.

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 changes since version 1 recorded which sentence of the text each statement rests on and named the license the record itself is published under.

    View JSON-LD Turtle RDF/XML

    2 changes

    • changed permission dalicc:ChangeLicense with duties [dalicc:compliantLicense]

      was permission dalicc:ChangeLicense with duties [dalicc:compliantLicense]

      Manual edit The statement is marked as a library convention, family rule 15: Permissive records permit relicensing: the text does not state it in as many words. Its duty dalicc:compliantLicense is marked as a library convention, family rule 15: Permissive records permit relicensing.

    • 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

    Created from the license text on 2026-09-15 (Permissive: MIT, ISC and BSD-like).

    View JSON-LD Turtle RDF/XML

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.