How to Recognise Open Data and What You Can Do With Them

Open Data can usually be used, reused and shared without restriction. The only exception is an eventual demand for credit or “share-alike”.

You can find out about the conditions for the use of the data and/or whether the data has its own licence on the website of the publisher. It could be that the publisher has retained the rights to all data. Or the publisher may use a unique open licence on the data, and you are then simply able to use, change and re-publish the data. If the situation is unclear, you can check whether someone in the past has asked for clarification and whether this is also documented in an archive of earlier enquiries. If this is not the case, you can submit an enquiry to the publisher yourself.

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