Open data is data that can be freely used, re-used and redistributed by anyone – subject only, at most, to the requirement to attribute and sharealike. –Open Data Handbook
The sharing of open data can be incredibly beneficial to society: facilitating enhanced scientific collaboration and reproducibility, increasing government and corporate transparency, and speeding the discovery and understanding of solutions to planetary and societal needs.
A big part of the potential value of data is realized by use across organizational and geographical boundaries. How does this occur legally? Increasingly, sharing of data is facilitated through the use of standard, public legal tools used to manage copyright and similar restrictions that might otherwise limit dissemination or reuse of data.
Many organizations, institutions, and governments are using Creative Commons licenses to share data (see our FAQ). TheCC0 Public Domain Dedication最大限度地重用数据和数据库尤其重要，否则可能不清楚高度真实的数据和数据库是否受到版权或其他权利的限制。CC0旨在涵盖所有版权和数据库权利，因此，无论数据和数据库如何受到限制(受版权或其他限制)，这些权利都将被放弃。
Open data policies arebeing adoptedto ensure access to data—either as a raw material, or alongside other types of scholarly outputs. Anddata-specific repositories允许用户在CC许可下上传和共享。
