How Open Data Licenses Make Your Data Reusable

Have you ever used data without explicit terms of use in your research? Consider an example: you’ve just discovered a dataset online containing rare, valuable information that could significantly inform your research. You’re eager to reuse it in your analysis, but there’s one problem: there’s no license attached. Can you rely on and refer to it in your research? Or combine it with your own data and publish a modified version? Without explicit terms of use, the answers remain uncertain.

This is where licensing steps in.

Why open data licenses matter

Any data published openly without explicit licensing or terms of use can't be considered truly open. A license provides the legal clarity that tells others: here’s how you can use this. It sets the framework for reuse, redistribution, and modification.

Well-established license families, such as Creative Commons (CC) and Open Data Commons (ODC), provide global standards researchers can trust. Common examples include:

• Attribution (CC-BY-4.0): allows sharing and adaptation, as long as credit is given.
• Public Domain Dedication (CC0-1.0): waives all rights, placing data fully in the public domain.
• Attribution Share Alike (CC-BY-SA-4.0): permits reuse, but requires derivative works to use the same license.

At SplineCloud, we rely on the SPDX License List, a community-maintained global standard that assigns each license a unique identifier (spdx_id) along with metadata like the official name, URL, and description. SPDX is already widely adopted in both software and data communities, which means our repositories comply with global practices used by such platforms as GitHub, Zenodo, and Figshare.

[ Diagram from How To Attribute Creative Commons Photos by Foter, licensed CC BY-SA 3.0 ]

How clear licensing improves reusability

From a technical and legal standpoint, unlicensed data is problematic. Even if a dataset is accessible, it may not be reusable under FAIR principles if its legal status is unclear.

Clear licensing supports FAIRness by:

• Automating interpretation: software agents can read identifiers like CC-BY-4.0 and instantly understand conditions of reuse.
• Reducing legal risk: researchers can confidently build on existing work without fear of copyright violation.
• Powering data pipelines: aggregators and FAIR repositories can filter and combine datasets automatically, ensuring license compatibility.

Without licensing, these automated processes break down.

Lessons from the community

Other open platforms highlight the importance of licensing:

• Zenodo requires every record to include a license. Users can select from Creative Commons, Open Data Commons, and other SPDX-recognized licenses. Metadata is then exported in JSON and OAI-PMH feeds with a license field referencing the SPDX ID.
• GitHub: Repositories can technically exist without a license, but GitHub strongly recommends adding one. GitHub’s API exposes license metadata based on SPDX identifiers, enabling downstream tools to determine compliance and compatibility automatically.

These platforms show how integrating SPDX licenses bridges the gap between legal clarity and technical interoperability.



How we’ve implemented licenses on SplineCloud

To bring these best practices, we introduced a License model in SplineCloud’s backend. Each license record includes:



• Name – full license title (e.g., “Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International”).
• Short name (spdx_id) – standard SPDX identifier (e.g., CC-BY-4.0).
• URL – canonical reference, typically to Creative Commons or SPDX license text.
• Description – short summary of usage conditions.

We regularly import and update licenses directly from the official SPDX JSON list to ensure our license catalogue stays aligned with global open science infrastructure.

For existing repositories, we have introduced a special SplineCloud license called SC-Legacy (Public Access). This license reflects our Terms of Service prior to this update and is automatically applied to older repositories. Importantly, users may change the license type at any time to one of the standard SPDX-supported licenses.

[ Visual example of adding a license to a new repository in SplineCloud ]



The link between licensing and FAIRness

Licensing sits at the heart of the “R” in FAIR — Reusable. On SplineCloud, each repository now carries structured, machine-readable license information, ensuring that:

• Machine-actionable metadata – Each repository stores its license in a structured form (spdx_id), making it easy for systems to interpret automatically.
• Clear reuse rights – Researchers, developers, and institutions know exactly how they may use data and functions.
• Interoperability – Since SplineCloud uses SPDX identifiers, our repositories remain consistent with widely accepted practices across platforms such as GitHub, Zenodo, and Figshare.



By integrating open data licenses, SplineCloud reinforces its position as a trusted platform for engineers and researchers worldwide — one that ensures data can be reused transparently and responsibly, while aligning with FAIR principles and global licensing standards. This step not only strengthens compliance but also deepens our commitment to supporting an open, collaborative, and sustainable research ecosystem.