Freely Reusable Public Information Licence - Version 1

People :

Author : Republic of France

Text :

Preamble:

 This license aims at specifying the legal conditions of the re-use of public information that is freely reusable.

 It particularly specifies the rights to adapt the public information with a view to a commercial activity or not.

The rights conceded by the present license do not imply any transfer of property right on the public information.

 It aims at facilitating the re-use of public information in the context of the development of the information society.

 According to Article 8 of the 17th November 2003 2003/98/CE directive “The state institutions may authorize the re-use of documents without any conditions or may impose conditions, possibly by the means of a license which would deal with relevant questions. These conditions do not wrongly limit the re-use possibilities and are not used to restrain competition”.

 Since the coming into force of the order n° 2006-650 modifying the 17th July 1978 law, public information is in principle freely reusable.

 The re-use of public information is a right that is granted to any moral or physical person in the perspective of a commercial activity or not.

 According to Article 10 of the law n° 78-753 of the 17th July 1978, “the information stored in documents elaborated by or in possession of the administrations mentioned in Article 1, whatever the format may be, may be used by any person who would wish it and for other reasons than those of the public service mission for the needs of which the documents have been elaborated or are held”.

 This license aims at certifying the legal qualification of public information in the sense of the French law and the laws n°78-753 of 17th July 1978.

 This license applies to « public information », that is to say information lying in administrative documents or in possession of the State, local authorities, or public or private institutions that are in charge of a public service mission.

 According to Article 10 of that law, the following do not constitute « public information »:

 The present license certifies the legal qualification of public information of the data included in the document diffused under this license. It guaranties that the conceding party has all the rights conceded below and, whenever needed, the rights of intellectual property for the document containing the public information accessible under this license.

 The present license specifies the legal conditions of re-use of public information as specified in Article 12 of the law n°78-753 17 July 1978 which imposes that the data “be not altered, that their meaning be not transformed, and that their sources and their update dates be mentioned”.

 They specify the rights and obligations of the licensee re-user of public information accessible under the present license. The licensee commits himself to use the public information of the conceding party strictly abiding by the corresponding rules.

 1. Source and date of accessibility

 The licensee commits himself to indicate the source as well as the update date of information without these excerpts being possibly interpreted as any kind of guaranty given by the conceding party.

 1.1           Source

 The licensee commits himself to indicating the source, and when needed, regarding the paternity right, the name of the public agents authors of intellectual works. If these particulars exist, they appear in the part of the document containing the public information where the persons who participated in its development are stated, or on the format from which the document is accessible.

 1.2    Date of accessibility

 The licensee commits himself to indicate the date of the last update of the public information that is in the document the day of the re-use.

2. Exclusivity

The license confers to the licensee a personal and non exclusive right of reusing the public information.

 3. Duration/ territory

 The license is granted worldwide until 31st December of the year of the contract, and then every 1st January by tacit renewal.

 4. Commercial or non commercial usage of the re-use

 The reusing is free of charge and does not necessitate any payment to the conceding party by the licensee, including when it concerns the commercial use of the public information re-used, whenever it is commercialised after new treatments and in a new product or service for the third-parties.

 The reusing, commercial or not, shall be done by the licensee: he shall not act as intermediary and resell the public information as is to a third-party for commercialisation.

 5. Reproduction

 The licensee is authorized to reproduce all re-used public information on all existing formats or unknown ones up to the present day.

 6. Modification

 The licensee is authorized to modify all re-used public information on condition of respecting their integrity. Modifications bear on re-used public information copies made by the licensee and diffused under his signature.

 6.1. Information deterioration

 The licensee especially verifies that the reprocessing does not deteriorate the contents of information.

Information modification is expressly authorized to enable their documentary, technical or editorial enrichment. It notably endeavors to give information about metadata, to make re-used public information interoperable with other information or to update it.

 6.2. Distortion of the meaning

 The licensee especially verifies that the reprocessing does not change the meaning of words.

Insertion of comments must be clearly distinguished from the licensor contents.

The licensee is not authorized to make cuts deteriorating the meaning of the re-used public information.

 7. Re-accessibility

 The licensee is authorized to concede sub-licenses, commercial or not, on re-used public information when they are treated afresh and they are included in a new product or service.

Integral, free and without value-added re-accessibility of re-used public information to third-parties is forbidden, unless it is made under this current license or expressly authorized by the licensor.

 8. Termination

 Every breach of this current license will lead to an automatic termination. However, this license keeps its effects towards physical or moral persons, who have received re-used public information from the licensee, under the conditions of Articles 6 and 7.

This current license is enforceable during all the period of the public information re-use, according to the applicable law. Nevertheless, the licensor, at any time, reserves the right to submit the public information re-use to different contractual conditions, or to stop their accessibility;

However, the recourse to this option must not lead to withdrawing the effects of this current license.

 9. Liability

 The licensor guarantees he owns all the rights granted in this current license. The licensor cannot be liable for erroneous, missing, or irregular information. He cannot be liable for the casual unavailability of the information when this unavailability is due to an act of God or chargeable to a third-party.

He cannot be liable for the way the re-used public information is transmitted to third-parties or re-used by the licensee, in combination with other information.

The licensee will carry alone the financial consequences in case of third party claim against the licensor, based on the re-use made by the licensee.

 10. Sanctions

 Every person reusing the public information in violation of the provisions of Law 78-753 on July 17th 1978 is subject to the fine set by Article 18 of that law.

 11. Applicable law/ Litigations

 In case of litigation about the interpretation or the completion of this license, the parties commit themselves to seek an amicable solution. If such a solution cannot be found in a period of 90 days from the announcement of the litigation by one of the parties to the other, the dispute will be referred to the court of competent jurisdiction in Paris adjudicating by French law.

Applicable texts

Chronology :

May 08, 2017 : Freely Reusable Public Information Licence - Version 1 -- Added.

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