{"id":"CC-BY-2.0","title":"Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic","reviewed_on":"2026-09-22","reviewer":"Giray Havur","text_source":"https://raw.githubusercontent.com/spdx/license-list-data/main/text/CC-BY-2.0.txt","text_retrieved":true,"verdict":"created","summary":"The record models the BY element set of the Creative Commons 2.0 generic legal code, the text the library's 2.0 jurisdiction ports were adapted from. The deontic model is the one the 4.0 record of the same element set and all of its ports use, so a compatibility answer for this record matches theirs; what the text adds over 4.0, and what it lacks, is quoted in dalicc:additionalClauses and set out in the findings. Nothing here is legal advice.","findings":[{"rubric":1,"severity":"info","field":"spdx:licenseId","description":"The file name, the local name of the odrl:Set IRI, the SPDX identifier and the id of this review record are all CC-BY-2.0. The text modelled is the plain text the SPDX license list publishes for that identifier. cc:legalcode points at the legal code page of the licence and dct:source at its deed, which is the pair every Creative Commons record in the library carries.","action":"applied"},{"rubric":2,"severity":"minor","field":"odrl:target","description":"odrl:target carries dalicc:CreativeWork only. The 2.0 text names neither data nor a database right anywhere, so dcmitype:Dataset is left off. The 4.0 record of this element set carries it because the 4.0 text has a sui generis database rights section; the 2.0 jurisdiction ports in the library carry only dalicc:CreativeWork, which is the same reading.","action":"applied"},{"rubric":3,"severity":"major","field":"odrl:permission","description":"Section 3 grants \"to reproduce the Work, to incorporate the Work into one or more Collective Works, and to reproduce the Work as incorporated in the Collective Works\" and \"to distribute copies or phonorecords of, display publicly, perform publicly, and perform publicly by means of a digital audio transmission the Work including as incorporated in Collective Works\", which are odrl:reproduce, odrl:distribute, odrl:display and odrl:present. It also grants \"to create and reproduce Derivative Works\", which is odrl:modify, odrl:derive, cc:DerivativeWorks and dalicc:ModifiedWorks. cc:CommercialUse is permitted, because this element set carries no commercial restriction. dalicc:chargeDistributionFee is permitted: the licence says nothing about a fee for handing a copy over, and every Creative Commons record in the library reads that silence the same way.","action":"applied"},{"rubric":4,"severity":"major","field":"odrl:prohibition","description":"dalicc:sublicense, from \"You may not sublicense the Work.\", which this text states in as many words; this is consolidation decision 1 of the 2026-09-15 review and the validator enforces it. dalicc:ChangeLicense, from \"You may distribute, publicly display, publicly perform, or publicly digitally perform the Work only under the terms of this License\". dalicc:promote. The 2.0 text carries no endorsement clause in its body. The bar rests on the Creative Commons trademark notice printed with the licence, which says that apart from indicating to the public that the Work is licensed under the CCPL, neither party will use the Creative Commons trademark or logo without the prior written consent of Creative Commons. That is the reading the 2.0 jurisdiction ports in the library take, and it is weaker than the 3.0 one, which states the endorsement bar in the licence body.","action":"applied"},{"rubric":5,"severity":"major","field":"odrl:duty","description":"cc:Notice and cc:Attribution hang on odrl:distribute, from \"You must include a copy of, or the Uniform Resource Identifier for, this License with every copy or phonorecord of the Work You distribute, publicly display, publicly perform, or publicly digitally perform\" and \"You must keep intact all copyright notices for the Work and give the Original Author credit reasonable to the medium or means You are utilizing\". The same two, plus dalicc:modificationNotice, hang on odrl:modify and odrl:derive. dalicc:modificationNotice rests on \"in the case of a Derivative Work, a credit identifying the use of the Work in the Derivative Work\". The duties hang on the acts that share the work with the public rather than on the licence as a whole, which is how the whole Creative Commons family is modelled.","action":"applied"},{"rubric":6,"severity":"minor","field":"dalicc:additionalClauses","description":"dalicc:WarrantyDisclaimer and dalicc:LiabilityLimitation are quoted verbatim and each holds its own clause: the disclaimer is Section 5 and the limitation is Section 6, and the wording of both moves a little from version to version, so neither is copied from the 4.0 record. dalicc:additionalClauses carries the clauses the ODRL policy cannot express, in the order the licence states them. They are the royalty and collecting-society clause, the termination clause, the direct licence every recipient receives from the licensor. The 4.0 records and the 287 jurisdiction ports carry no dalicc:additionalClauses at all, so this record shows more of its text than its siblings do.","action":"applied"},{"rubric":7,"severity":"info","field":"cc:jurisdiction","description":"cc:jurisdiction is dalicc:worldwide. This is the generic text, not a jurisdiction port: it names no country and no governing law, and the grant itself is \"worldwide, royalty-free, non-exclusive, perpetual (for the duration of the applicable copyright)\", so dalicc:validityType is dalicc:perpetual. dalicc:terminatesOnBreach is true, from \"This License and the rights granted hereunder will terminate automatically upon any breach by You of the terms of this License.\" There is no cure period and no reinstatement, which is where this text differs from 4.0; dalicc:curePeriod is therefore absent.","action":"applied"},{"rubric":8,"severity":"gap","field":"dalicc:additionalClauses","description":"The licence makes the licensee take the credit down again on request: \"If You create a Collective Work, upon notice from any Licensor You must, to the extent practicable, remove from the Collective Work any reference to such Licensor or the Original Author, as requested\". No vocabulary term can say that. Proposed term: dalicc:creditRemovalOnRequest, a duty action on the acts that carry cc:Attribution. The clause is quoted instead.","action":"none"},{"rubric":8,"severity":"info","field":"odrl:prohibition","description":"Three clauses of this text have a vocabulary term that no Creative Commons record uses: the technological measures bar (dalicc:applyTechnicalProtectionMeasures, used on two records in the library), the bar on offering or imposing further terms (dalicc:addLimitation) and the direct licence the recipient receives (dalicc:downstreamOffer, used nowhere). Adding them to the records of this set alone would split the compatibility behaviour of a family of 305 records, so they are quoted or left to the prohibition of dalicc:ChangeLicense, and proposed as one library-wide change. The royalty clause is different: dalicc:royaltyCollectionReserved carries it on the NonCommercial records of versions 2.0, 2.5 and 3.0, whose texts reserve, and on none of the 1.0 records, whose texts have no royalty clause. dalicc:moralRightsRestriction is stated on the 3.0 records only, because the honour and reputation clause arrived with that version.","action":"proposed"},{"rubric":9,"severity":"info","field":"record","description":"The consistency check of app.services.composer against the axioms of licensedata/dependencygraph/dg_default.ttl returns an empty list for this record.","action":"none"},{"rubric":10,"severity":"info","field":"family","description":"The nearest sibling is CC-BY-4.0, the 4.0 International record of the same element set, and the deontic model here is identical to it, statement for statement, as it is on every jurisdiction port of this element set. What differs: the 2.0 text has no database clause, no cure period and no automatic reinstatement after a breach, and its asset types are narrower. dalicc:variantKind is \"version\" and dalicc:licenseVersion is \"2.0\", the two predicates the library already uses to say that a record models an earlier text of a licence it also holds. There is no dalicc:jurisdictionPortOf and no country: this is the generic original the ports were adapted from, not a port.","action":"none"},{"rubric":10,"severity":"minor","field":"dalicc:additionalClauses","description":"The six records of this version quote the same passages of the version's text, each literal a single verbatim run of this record's own legal code, in the order the text states them. A passage the element set does not have is absent, which is a difference between the texts and not between two readings.","action":"applied"},{"rubric":4,"severity":"minor","field":"odrl:prohibition","description":"dalicc:promote was prohibited and no sentence of this text supports it. The statement was the library's reading of a legal default, that a copyright licence which says nothing about endorsement grants no right to it, and it sat in 519 of 581 records as a house convention. That reading is now an adopted dalicc:DefaultRule of the core dependency graph, which supplies it to every licence that is silent about the action, so a compatibility check reaches the same answer and the record states only what the text states. Removed on 2026-09-23; see section 13 of docs/LICENSE_REVIEW.md.","action":"applied","change":"# removed\nodrl:prohibition [ a odrl:Prohibition ;\n        odrl:action dalicc:promote ] ;\n"}],"family":"Creative Commons 2.0 Generic","port_of":null,"variant_kind":"version","variant_of":null,"notes":"Modelled from the SPDX plain text of CC-BY-2.0, checked sentence by sentence against the legal code at https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/legalcode. Every quoted clause was verified to occur in that text. No quoted clause carries a long dash."}