{"id":"Cc010Universal","title":"CC0 1.0 Universal (CC0 1.0) Public Domain Dedication","reviewed_on":"2026-09-15","reviewer":"Giray Havur","text_source":"https://raw.githubusercontent.com/spdx/license-list-data/main/text/CC0-1.0.txt","text_retrieved":true,"verdict":"corrected","summary":"CC0 is a dedication, not a licence, and the record models it as one: every act is permitted, no duty is imposed anywhere, and the only prohibition is the use of the affirmer's trademarks. Applied: spdx:licenseId and the public-licence fallback of Section 3, which is the clause that makes CC0 work in jurisdictions where a dedication to the public domain is ineffective. The waiver covers sui generis database rights expressly, which the model can only show through the dataset asset type.","findings":[{"rubric":1,"severity":"minor","field":"spdx:licenseId","description":"The record carried no SPDX identifier. Its cc:legalcode, https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/legalcode, is the seeAlso URL of the SPDX entry CC0-1.0, Creative Commons Zero v1.0 Universal. Added.","action":"applied","change":"spdx:licenseId \"CC0-1.0\" ;"},{"rubric":1,"severity":"info","field":"dct:title","description":"Title, alternatives, cc:legalcode and dct:source all name CC0 1.0 Universal and resolve.","action":"none"},{"rubric":2,"severity":"info","field":"odrl:target","description":"The asset collection is dalicc:CreativeWork plus dcmitype:Dataset. The dataset type is not decoration: Section 1(vi) names the sui generis database rights of Directive 96/9/EC among the rights waived.","action":"none"},{"rubric":3,"severity":"info","field":"odrl:permission","description":"Every act is permitted, which is what the text says: Section 2 waives \"all of Affirmer's Copyright and Related Rights ... in any current or future medium and for any number of copies, and (iv) for any purpose whatsoever, including without limitation commercial, advertising or promotional purposes\". dalicc:ChangeLicense is among the permissions, correctly: after a waiver there is no licence left to keep.","action":"none"},{"rubric":4,"severity":"info","field":"odrl:prohibition","description":"The single prohibition, dalicc:promote, is supported by Section 4(a): \"No trademark or patent rights held by Affirmer are waived, abandoned, surrendered, licensed or otherwise affected by this document.\" It restricts the use of the affirmer's marks, not promotional use of the work itself, which Section 2 expressly allows.","action":"none"},{"rubric":5,"severity":"info","field":"odrl:duty","description":"The record carries no duty at all, which is correct for a dedication: CC0 imposes no attribution and no notice requirement. The family-rule baseline lists this record among the four where no attribution duty is expected.","action":"none"},{"rubric":6,"severity":"minor","field":"dalicc:additionalClauses","description":"Section 3, the public-licence fallback, was missing from the record although it is the operative clause wherever the waiver fails: it grants a royalty-free, irrevocable, unconditional licence for any purpose whatsoever as a second line of defence. Quoted verbatim into dalicc:additionalClauses.","action":"applied","change":"dalicc:additionalClauses \"\"\"Public License Fallback. Should any part of the Waiver for any reason be judged legally invalid or ineffective under applicable law, then the Waiver shall be preserved to the maximum extent permitted ...\"\"\" ;"},{"rubric":6,"severity":"info","field":"dalicc:WarrantyDisclaimer","description":"dalicc:WarrantyDisclaimer is Section 4(b) and 4(d) and dalicc:LiabilityLimitation is Section 4(a) and 4(c), both quoted verbatim. Placing the trademark and patent reservation under a field named LiabilityLimitation is loose, but the text is accurate and the alternative, moving it to additionalClauses, would lose it from the clause view of the site.","action":"none"},{"rubric":7,"severity":"info","field":"cc:jurisdiction","description":"dalicc:worldwide and dalicc:perpetual are both supported: the waiver runs \"(i) in all territories worldwide, (ii) for the maximum duration provided by applicable law or treaty (including future time extensions)\" and is expressly not subject to revocation, rescission, cancellation or termination.","action":"none"},{"rubric":8,"severity":"gap","field":"record","description":"Two things cannot be said with the present vocabulary. First, that this record is a dedication rather than a licence: nothing distinguishes it from a very permissive licence, and the composer treats it the same way. Proposed term: dalicc:publicDomainDedication, a policy quality next to dalicc:validityType. Second, the express non-waiver of patent rights: dalicc:patentFree exists as a concept but says the opposite. Proposed term: dalicc:patentRightsReserved.","action":"none"},{"rubric":8,"severity":"gap","field":"record","description":"Section 4(c), that the affirmer disclaims responsibility for clearing third-party rights and for obtaining consents, and the statement that Creative Commons is not a party to the document, have no term either. They are carried as clause text instead.","action":"none"},{"rubric":9,"severity":"info","field":"record","description":"The consistency check reports no conflict, before and after the corrections.","action":"none"},{"rubric":10,"severity":"info","field":"record","description":"CC0 shares its deontic signature with OdcPublicDomainDedicationAndLicence, the Open Data Commons PDDL, which the review of duplicates (see the review method, docs/LICENSE_REVIEW.md section 3) flags. The two records should be indistinguishable to the compatibility checker, because the two documents do the same thing: a dedication with a licence fallback. The separation into two records is justified by provenance, the publisher and the legal text differ, not by the model. Both now carry their fallback clause in dalicc:additionalClauses, so the records differ in the one place where the documents differ.","action":"none"}],"family":"Creative Commons CC0 1.0 public domain dedication","port_of":null,"variant_kind":null,"notes":"CC0 is not a Creative Commons licence and has no element set, so port_of and variant_kind are empty. The record's own cc:license is dalicclib:CC-BY-4.0, which is the licence of the DALICC metadata record and not of the dedication. Nothing in this review is legal advice."}