The ALA encourages the use of the latest version of the Creative Commons Australia or international jurisdiction licenses and our contribution forms are geared to this type of license.
The Creative Commons Australia Licenses that are available when sharing via the ALA are:
The ALA offers an integrated set of biological observations to Australian and international researchers and the community. This requires that each data set be licensed in a way that ensures that researchers and the community are able to reuse data that you submit. Our preferred license is the Creative Commons Attribution license, where users of your data are required to attribute their use of your data to you.
We also support the Creative Commons Zero license, by which you can dedicate your data to the Public Domain. This provides for very simple reuse of your data, given the thousands of data sets in the ALA.
If you have commercial concerns about your data the Creative Commons Attribution, Non-commercial license withholds permission for the use of your data for commercial purposes without your providing additional permission.
We do not accept data under any of the Creative Commons licenses that include the No Derivatives term, as a key purpose of the ALA is to facilitate the re-use of data and the creation of derivative products.
For more information, see also:
- a fact sheet by the Australian National Data Service for a useful summary of Creative Commons and Data
- Creative Commons Australia for more information on the licences
- for Government agencies
- CC & Government Guide to using Creative Commons 3.0 Australia Licenses on Government Copyright Materials
- Australian Government intellectual property rules