What is missing for me here is how state and local government in the United States should interact with copyrights? Reading the United States Federal public domain content in wikipedia it looks like everything is by default in the public domain unless other wise noted? And also the Copyright symbols are no longer needed as long as the work has acquired a form. The creative commons description seems to say creative commons licenses apply only to where copyrights have actually existed. If I go by the Open Definition listed here, I tend to think that no data in any US state or local jurisdiction data repository is truly open. There are always restrictions on commercial usage. How do I determine if I actually have a copyright if I work in government? How do I determine how open I am if I allow individuals to see all the data but restrict how corporations re use the data? I looked through the Open Definition licenses and none of them seemed applicable. So I probably need some type of generic suggestion for a license that works well with a city in the United States given that only Federal law is active in this area for the city.