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Source: The following is from the Open Data Commons (ODC) site and is provided here for convenience and to aid in searching the DIDO-RA for relavent terms.

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Note: The following is a dislaimer provided by ODC, it also applies to the Object Management Group (OMG) and the Distributed Immutable Data Object Reference Architecture (DIDO-RA).

Open Data Commons is not a law firm and does not provide legal services of any kind.

Open Data Commons has no formal relationship with you. Your receipt of this document does not create any kind of agent-client relationship. Please seek the advice of a suitably qualified legal professional licensed to practice in your jurisdiction before using this document.

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This information is provided ‘as is‘, and this site makes no warranties on the information provided. Any damages resulting from its use are disclaimed.

Read the Full Disclaimer. A Plain Language Summary of the Public Domain Dedication and License is available as well as a Plain Text Version.

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The Open Data Commons – Public Domain Dedication and Licence is a document intended to allow you to freely share, modify, and use this work for any purpose and without any restrictions. This licence is intended for use on databases or their contents (“data”), either together or individually.

Many databases are covered by copyright. Some jurisdictions, mainly in Europe, have specific special rights that cover databases called the “sui generis” database right. Both of these sets of rights, as well as other legal rights used to protect databases and data, can create uncertainty or practical difficulty for those wishing to share databases and their underlying data but retain a limited amount of rights under a “some rights reserved” approach to licensing as outlined in the Science Commons Protocol for Implementing Open Access Data. As a result, this waiver and licence tries to the fullest extent possible to eliminate or fully license any rights that cover this database and data. Any Community Norms or similar statements of use of the database or data do not form a part of this document, and do not act as a contract for access or other terms of use for the database or data.

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Because this document places the database and its contents in or as close as possible within the public domain, there are no restrictions or requirements placed on the recipient by this document. Recipients may use this work commercially, use technical protection measures, combine this data or database with other databases or data, and share their changes and additions or keep them secret. It is not a requirement that recipients provide further users with a copy of this licence or attribute the original creator of the data or database as a source. The goal is to eliminate restrictions held by the original creator of the data and database on the use of it by others.

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Copyright law, as with most other law under the banner of “intellectual property”, is inherently national law. This means that there exists several differences in how copyright and other IP rights can be relinquished, waived or licensed in the many legal jurisdictions of the world. This is despite much harmonisation of minimum levels of protection. The internet and other communication technologies span these many disparate legal jurisdictions and thus pose special difficulties for a document relinquishing and waiving intellectual property rights, including copyright and database rights, for use by the global community. Because of this feature of intellectual property law, this document first relinquishes the rights and waives the relevant rights and claims. It then goes on to license these same rights for jurisdictions or areas of law that may make it difficult to relinquish or waive rights or claims.

The purpose of this document is to enable rightsholders to place their work into the public domain. Unlike licences for free and open source software, free cultural works, or open content licences, rightsholders will not be able to “dual license” their work by releasing the same work under different licences. This is because they have allowed anyone to use the work in whatever way they choose. Rightsholders therefore can’t re-license it under copyright or database rights on different terms because they have nothing left to license. Doing so creates truly accessible data to build rich applications and advance the progress of science and the arts.

This document can cover either or both of the database and its contents (the data). Because databases can have a wide variety of content – not just factual data – rightsholders should use the Open Data Commons – Public Domain Dedication & Licence for an entire database and its contents only if everything can be placed under the terms of this document. Because even factual data can sometimes have intellectual property rights, rightsholders should use this licence to cover both the database and its factual data when making material available under this document; even if it is likely that the data would not be covered by copyright or database rights.

Rightsholders can also use this document to cover any copyright or database rights claims over only a database, and leave the contents to be covered by other licences or documents. They can do this because this document refers to the “Work”, which can be either – or both – the database and its contents. As a result, rightsholders need to clearly state what they are dedicating under this document when they dedicate it.

Just like any licence or other document dealing with intellectual property, rightsholders should be aware that one can only license what one owns. Please ensure that the rights have been cleared to make this material available under this document.

This document permanently and irrevocably makes the Work available to the public for any use of any kind, and it should not be used unless the rightsholder is prepared for this to happen.