| Access | Free | Free | Free or paid |
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| Commercial use | Yes | Yes | Negotiated |
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| Modification/ remix | Yes | Yes | Negotiated |
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| Derivative work | Yes | Yes | Negotiated |
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| Ownership retained? | No | Yes | Negotiated - may be transferred by agreement |
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| Attribution required? | No | Yes | Negotiated |
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| Recommended licence | CC 0 | CC BY 4.0 | Bespoke licence in a data sharing agreement |
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| Benefits | Universal tool that offers the clearest and most open terms for making data re-usable.
Waives all copyright in the work and allows re-users to distribute, adapt, and build with no restrictions.
Standardised licence type that enables very high interoperability with other data.
Removes friction from attribution stacking or combing licences in combined works. | Allows re-users to distribute, adapt, and build on the work, with attribution to the original creator.
Popular and commonly used licence type that enables high interoperability with other data. | Data sharing agreements allow the greatest level of flexibility for how data is shared and what the shared data can be used for.
Data sharing agreements can also set out the commercial terms between parties for the data transfer.
Parties can agree on set expectations on accuracy, precision, and reliance. |
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| Limitations | Copyright and ownership in data is forfeited.
No control of how data is reused and data holders may lose control of downstream commercial benefits derived from the data. | Attribution of nature data in subsequent works (e.g. a work that queries 500 databases) can become awkward and cumbersome for data re-users.
Share-alike requirements can create licence compatibility issues particularly in the context of data that make integration and re-use of data awkward.
Hard to control how data is reused and data holders may lose control of downstream commercial benefits derived from the data. | Independent legal, commercial and technical advice required.
Data is not findable by the public. |
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| Example | The Environmental Data Initiative Portal makes environmental and ecological data available and prescribes a default data policy using the CC 0 public domain dedication. | The Australian Government Joint Remote Sensing Research Program’s Hemispherical Photography – Australian field sites data is available under CC BY 4.0. | See licensing terms in the Sample Data Sharing Agreement at Appendix A (Sample Data Sharing Agreement). |
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