Thank you for bringing this up. Our new “open licensing/public domain” question will be accepted if you can provide evidence on one of the following two points:
- Every submission must check whether an open license is provided. The license must inform you about the legal openness of a specific dataset. This means that you have to find a license that applies to the dataset. The license does not have to refer explicitly to a dataset. It is also possible that a license refers more generally to data provided on a website / catalogue. Key is that you can somehow see that a license applies to the dataset. You should check if the license applies, send a link to the license and document your rationale in the comment box (explaining why you think the license applies). It is also important to verify whether the open license complies with the open definition.
- Even if no open license can be found there it is possible that the dataset is in the public domain (for a broader discussion see here, and here). In this case we accept submissions if the submitters is able to provide a link to the law / disclaimer stating that the data is in the public domain.
So either of the two options is accepted for submission. Key is that you can somehow verify that the license / public domain status applies to the dataset. If this is not possible, please use the comment function to explain why and also send us the link to any possible disclaimer/license, etc.
It would be very helpful to get feedback from others whether it is hard to figure out if an open license /public domain status applies to a specific dataset.
Please do not hesitate to send any other question you might have.
Hope this helps
Danny