US federal government works are generally public domain — OPEN Government Data Act (P.L. 115-435) + 17 U.S.C. §105; agencies encouraged to use CC0
Created 2026-06-20
Summary
Claim: US federal government works are generally public domain (OPEN Government Data Act, P.L. 115-435; 17 U.S.C. §105); agencies are encouraged to use CC0.
Source: https://resources.data.gov/open-licenses/
Confidence: Verified.
Why this matters for Candid: US federal data (FRED, Census) is the lowest-friction class of open data — no attribution required, no share-alike obligation. Contrast with OpenStreetMap uses the Open Database License (ODbL) — attribution + share-alike on derivative databases; "produced works" (rendered maps) can be licensed freely for the share-alike case.
Related entries
Referenced by (3)
- reference Research brief: live data and data-driven tools for SMBs — when it's an edge, when it's overkill (June 2026) relates-to
- reference OpenStreetMap uses the Open Database License (ODbL) — attribution + share-alike on derivative databases; "produced works" (rendered maps) can be licensed freely relates-to
- rule R3 — Read the license before building a product on open data; CC0 ≠ CC BY-SA ≠ ODbL depends-on