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
`legal_basis`	enum	Legal basis for collecting/processing personal data (required when personal or child data)
`legal_basis_notes`	string	Explanation when `legal_basis` is `other`, or to add jurisdiction-specific detail

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

legal_basis

Value	Description
`explicit-consent`	Data subjects explicitly consented
`terms-of-service`	Collected under accepted terms of service
`public-domain`	Sourced from public domain materials
`licensed`	Rights obtained via license agreement
`legitimate-interest`	Processed under legitimate interest (jurisdictional)
`research-exemption`	Covered by research/academic exemption
`contractual-necessity`	Required to perform a contract
`publicly-available`	Publicly accessible with no expectation of privacy
`other`	Another documented legal basis (requires `legal_basis_notes`)

Conditional Rules

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

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",
    "legal_basis": "explicit-consent",
    "legal_basis_notes": "Participants provided written consent for research and model training uses.",
    "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 legal basis documentation is required
Potential legal obligations for downstream users

legal_basis

Choose the lawful basis that covers your collection and use of personal data. Match the value to the strongest justification you can document. If none of the enumerated values apply, use other and explain in legal_basis_notes.

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

legal_basis

Conditional Rules

Example

Field Details

license

contains_personal_data

legal_basis

allowed_uses and restricted_uses

See Also