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2026

ODC Open Database License (ODbL)

Also known as ODbL 1.0, ODbL v1.0.

Commercial use
allowed
Share alike
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/OdcOpenDatabaseLicense

Permissions

  • Commercial use from the text The text says: "These rights explicitly include commercial use, and do not exclude any field of endeavour." 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

    • 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.
  • 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.
  • Extract or reuse a substantial part of a database from the text The text says: "Subject to the terms and conditions of this License, the Licensor grants to You a worldwide, royalty-free, non-exclusive, terminable (but only under Section 9) license to Use the Database for the duration of any applicable copyright and Database Rights." Extracting or reusing all or a substantial part of the contents of a database that the sui generis database right protects.

    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.
    • 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.
  • Sublicense from the text Not permitted: Sublicense. The text says: "You may not sublicense the Database." Granting a third party rights in the work under a license of the licensee's own, rather than passing on the original license.

License-wide duties

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

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

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.

Additional clauses

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.

Info

Target asset types
Dataset
Region / jurisdiction
Worldwide
Validity
Perpetual
Source
https://opendatacommons.org/licenses/odbl/1.0/
Legal code
https://opendatacommons.org/licenses/odbl/1.0/
This description is published under
Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International
Publisher
Open Data Commons (Open Knowledge Foundation)
SPDX identifier
ODbL-1.0 on the SPDX license list
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.

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/OdcOpenDatabaseLicense",
  "license-title": "ODC Open Database License (ODbL)",
  "spdx-id": "ODbL-1.0",
  "attribution": "Copyright (c) [year] [copyright holder]",
  "asset": null,
  "generated-by": "DALICC"
}

RDF, Turtle 

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

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

RDF, JSON-LD 

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

HTML attribution 

<p>This work is licensed under <a href="https://dalicc.net/licenselibrary/OdcOpenDatabaseLicense" rel="license">ODC Open Database License (ODbL)</a>.</p>

This license asks for attribution, so the credit line is part of it.

Badge DALICC badge for ODC Open Database License (ODbL)

Markdown 

[![License: ODC Open Database License (ODbL)](https://dalicc.net/license-library/OdcOpenDatabaseLicense/badge.svg)](https://dalicc.net/license-library/OdcOpenDatabaseLicense)

HTML 

<a href="https://dalicc.net/license-library/OdcOpenDatabaseLicense"><img src="https://dalicc.net/license-library/OdcOpenDatabaseLicense/badge.svg" alt="License: ODC Open Database License (ODbL)"></a>

Review

Status
Reviewed against the license text
Last checked
2026-09-15
Reviewer
Giray Havur
Verdict
corrected during the review
Record changed since this review
yes (version 2, 2026-09-24)
Findings
21 recorded, 9 applied to the record, 1 proposed, 1 settled in a later version

The record models the share-alike database licence of Open Data Commons. The share-alike duty, the attribution and notice duties and the derivative-database permissions are all supported by the text. Two corrections were applied: commercial use, which Section 3.1 grants in as many words and which the record did not model at all, and the trademark prohibition of Section 2.3(c). The database-specific duties of Sections 4.6 and 4.7, access to the derivative database and parallel distribution, are beyond the vocabulary and are recorded as gaps.

20 findings

  • minor Rubric 1 spdx:licenseId applied

    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.

  • minor Rubric 1 dct:title applied

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

  • minor Rubric 1 dct:source proposed

    The record has cc:legalcode but no dct:source, so there is no second provenance link. The sibling records OdcPublicDomainDedicationAndLicence and OpenDataCommonsAttributionLicenseV10 both point dct:source at the corresponding opendefinition.org page. Proposed for symmetry rather than applied, because the opendefinition entry is a third-party description and not the licence.

  • info Rubric 2 odrl:target none

    The asset collection is dcmitype:Dataset only, which is right: the licence governs a database and Section 2.4 says expressly that it does not cover the individual contents.

  • major Rubric 3 odrl:permission applied

    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.

  • info Rubric 3 odrl:permission none

    The other permissions follow Section 3.1, which lists extraction and re-utilisation of a substantial part of the contents, creation of derivative and collective databases, reproduction and distribution, communication, display, lending, making available and performance to the public.

  • major Rubric 4 odrl:prohibition applied

    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.

  • minor Rubric 4 odrl:prohibition none

    dalicc:chargeDistributionFee is prohibited. The text supports a narrower rule than the record says: Section 4.6 requires the derivative database or the alteration file to be "available at no more than a reasonable production cost for physical distributions and free of charge if distributed over the internet", and Section 4.7(b)(i) requires the unrestricted parallel copy to be "available without additional fee". Section 3.1 at the same time allows commercial use. So the fee ban applies to the copy the licensee must hand over, not to every distribution. Left in place, because removing it would lose the only trace of Section 4.6 in the record, and left open for the association's decision.

  • info Rubric 5 odrl:duty none

    cc:ShareAlike is a licence-wide duty, which matches Section 4.4: a derivative database that is publicly used must be offered "only under the terms of this License" or a later version or a compatible licence. cc:Attribution and cc:Notice hang on distribute, modify and derive, which matches Section 4.2, notices, and Section 4.3, the notice for a produced work.

  • gap Rubric 5 odrl:duty none

    Section 4.6, access to derivative databases, has no term: the licensee must offer recipients either the entire derivative database or a file of all alterations, in machine readable form. It is the database equivalent of the source-code duty, but cc:SourceCode is defined for software and bending it would misstate the obligation. Proposed term: dalicc:derivativeDatabaseAccess.

  • info Rubric 6 dalicc:WarrantyDisclaimer none

    dalicc:WarrantyDisclaimer is Section 7.1 and dalicc:LiabilityLimitation is Sections 8.1 and 8.2, both quoted verbatim. Section 5, moral rights, Section 6, fair dealing and database exceptions, Section 9, termination and reinstatement, and Section 10.4, choice of law, are not carried in the record.

  • info Rubric 7 cc:jurisdiction none

    dalicc:worldwide matches Section 3.1, which grants a worldwide licence. dalicc:perpetual matches Section 9.3, "Unless terminated under Section 9.1, this License is granted to You for the duration of applicable rights in the Database." Section 10.4 leaves the governing law to the jurisdiction where the terms are enforced, so no country belongs in cc:jurisdiction.

  • gap Rubric 8 odrl:prohibition none

    Section 4.7(a) forbids imposing technological measures that restrict the rights granted, and Section 4.7(b) allows them only against parallel distribution of an unrestricted copy. Neither half has a term. Proposed terms: dalicc:applyTechnicalProtectionMeasures and dalicc:parallelDistribution. Section 9, automatic termination on breach with reinstatement, and Section 4.8, the automatic downstream offer, need dalicc:terminationOnBreach and dalicc:downstreamOffer.

  • info Rubric 9 record none

    The consistency check reports no conflict, before and after the corrections. Adding cc:CommercialUse next to the dalicc:chargeDistributionFee prohibition raised no conflict either, because the dependency graph relates the fee actions to odrl:sell and odrl:commercialize but not to cc:CommercialUse.

  • info Rubric 10 record none

    The three Open Data Commons records now differ from each other the way the documents do: PDDL dedicates, ODC-By requires attribution and notices, ODbL adds share-alike and the database-specific duties. Before the review ODbL was missing commercial use, which is the one thing all three grant in identical words in their Section 3.1.

  • major Rubric 10 record applied

    Standard-license addition of 2026-09-15, decision 9: the record was corrected against its new siblings and versioned. 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.

  • major Rubric 3 odrl:permission applied

    Section 3.1 reads: "Subject to the terms and conditions of this License, the Licensor grants to You a worldwide, royalty-free, non-exclusive, terminable (but only under Section 9) license to Use the Database for the duration of any applicable copyright and Database Rights." The licence defines Database Rights as the sui generis database right, so the permission is text-supported; without it, the proposed EU and UK default rule reads the licence as not granting the right it exists to grant. dalicc:suiGenerisDatabaseRights is permitted, with the cc:Attribution and cc:Notice duties that Section 4 attaches to every use.

  • major Rubric 4 odrl:prohibition applied

    dalicc:promote was prohibited on the strength of "This License does not cover any trademarks associated with the Database." That sentence leaves trademarks outside the licence and says nothing about endorsement, which is silence; since 2026-09-23 what a silent licence grants about endorsement is the adopted default rule of the core dependency graph, not a statement of the record (see section 13 of docs/LICENSE_REVIEW.md). Removed.

  • major Rubric 5 odrl:duty applied

    odrl:modify and odrl:derive carried a dalicc:modificationNotice duty that no sentence of the text supports. The licence asks for no change log: the alteration file of Section 4.6(b) is one of two ways to give recipients access to a Derivative Database, an alternative to offering the whole Derivative Database, not a notice of the changes. Removed.

  • minor Rubric 1 dct:publisher applied

    dct:publisher read "Socialtext Incorporated", the publisher of the Common Public Attribution License, which the record had been copied from. The ODbL is published by Open Data Commons, a project of the Open Knowledge Foundation. Corrected to "Open Data Commons (Open Knowledge Foundation)".

Settled in version 2 (1)

  • settled odrl:prohibition

    Section 4.8 states "You may not sublicense the Database" and the record does not say so. The vocabulary has dalicc:sublicense, defined but used by no record in the library. Proposed rather than applied, because the same sentence stands in ODC-By and in every Creative Commons 2.0 and 3.0 record, so it is one library-wide correction.

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 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.