Rights Section

The rights section declares the legal framework for using your dataset, including licensing terms, commercial use permissions, and personal data status. This information helps users determine if they can legally use the dataset for their intended purposes.

Required Fields

Field	Type	Description
`license`	string	License identifier (SPDX ID preferred, or human-readable string)
`allows_commercial_use`	boolean	Whether the dataset may be used for commercial model training
`contains_personal_data`	enum	High-level characterization of personal data presence

Optional Fields

Field	Type	Description
`license_url`	string (uri)	Canonical URL for the license text
`attribution_required`	boolean	Whether downstream users must provide attribution
`child_data`	boolean	Whether the dataset intentionally includes data about children
`allowed_uses`	array	Specific uses that are explicitly allowed
`restricted_uses`	array	Specific uses that are restricted or prohibited
`consent_mechanism`	string	Summary of consent or legal basis for data collection

Enum Values

contains_personal_data

Value	Description
`none`	No personal data present
`de_minimis`	Minimal personal data (e.g., incidental mentions of public figures)
`pseudonymous`	Personal data present but pseudonymized or anonymized
`direct`	Direct personal identifiers present

Conditional Rules

When…	You must provide…
`contains_personal_data` is “de_minimis”, “pseudonymous”, or “direct”	`consent_mechanism`
`child_data` is true	`consent_mechanism`

Example

{
  "rights": {
    "license": "CC-BY-4.0",
    "license_url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/",
    "attribution_required": true,
    "allows_commercial_use": true,
    "contains_personal_data": "pseudonymous",
    "consent_mechanism": "explicit-opt-in",
    "child_data": false,
    "allowed_uses": ["training-foundation-models", "research", "evaluation"],
    "restricted_uses": ["biometric-identification", "surveillance"]
  }
}

Field Details

license

Use SPDX license identifiers when possible for interoperability. Common choices include:

CC-BY-4.0 - Creative Commons Attribution 4.0
CC-BY-SA-4.0 - Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0
CC-BY-NC-4.0 - Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0
Apache-2.0 - Apache License 2.0
MIT - MIT License
CC0-1.0 - Public Domain Dedication

If using a custom license, provide a descriptive name and include the license_url.

contains_personal_data

Be honest about personal data status. This affects:

Whether users need to implement additional safeguards
Whether additional consent documentation is required
Potential legal obligations for downstream users

consent_mechanism

Examples of valid consent mechanisms:

explicit-opt-in - Users explicitly agreed to data collection
terms-of-service - Data collected under accepted ToS
public-domain - Data is from public domain sources
licensed - Data licensed from content creators
community-consent - Community representatives approved collection

allowed_uses and restricted_uses

Be specific about what users can and cannot do with the data. This helps users self-assess compatibility before downloading.

{
  "allowed_uses": ["training-foundation-models", "research", "evaluation", "non-profit-applications"],
  "restricted_uses": ["biometric-identification", "surveillance", "generating-misinformation", "military-applications"]
}

Rights Section

Required Fields

Optional Fields

Enum Values

contains_personal_data

Conditional Rules

Example

Field Details

license

contains_personal_data

consent_mechanism

allowed_uses and restricted_uses

See Also