Data licensing

Data Licensing

The Bureau of Meteorology (the Bureau) is publishing water information to be used by the community.

To ensure wide use of water information–and to protect data suppliers' copyright–the Bureau recommends data providers use the Creative Commons Attribution Australia Licence (the 'Creative Commons Licence') to cover the data they provide under the Water Regulations 2008.

Where a data supplier has chosen to adopt the CC Attribution Licence, the Bureau has clearly associated that person and their data with the CC Attribution Licence Logo shown below:

Creative Commons Logo

The terms and conditions of the CC Attribution Licence can be found by clicking on the licence logo. The Licence requires that if you reuse the information you must give clear and prominent credit to the original author and any other parties that are required to be attributed. This website shows the manner in which you must attribute each data supplier. For example, the Queensland Department of Environment and Resource Management has requested that it be attributed as:

© State of Queensland (Department of Environment and Resource Management)

The website also provides the contact details of water data suppliers who have chosen not to adopt the CC Attibution Licence. You should contact them directly to enquire about the terms and conditions of reuse of their information.

Why Creative Commons?

The Creative Commons Licence gives the community permission in advance to use water information, without having to directly contact the supplier.

The Creative Commons Licence allows anyone to use water information in a manner convenient to them, provided they acknowledge the original data supplier. The original data supplier will generally be the organisation that gave the water information to the Bureau.

The Bureau of Meteorology recommends using the Creative Commons Licence for water information because it:

  • is a legally binding public notice about how your organisation's information may be used
  • will provide a consistent and transparent legal framework for all water information resources
  • contains strong limitation of liability and warranty clauses
  • is an established de-facto international standard for licensing electronic information
  • is free and costs little or nothing to implement
  • requires attribution of the information author.

Using an organisation's information under the Creative Commons Licence

The Creative Commons Licence allows the community to share (copy and distribute) and remix or adapt your information, provided that they attribute you as the author. However, this cannot be done in a way that suggests that you endorse them or their use of your work. The Licence also stipulates that these conditions can be waived with special permission from you.

The Licence is compatible with Australian copyright law, and therefore none of the community's statutory rights, such as their right to fair dealing are affected. For instance, they may use your information for private study without your permission.

Licensing my water information under the Creative Commons Licence

If you would like to license your data under the Creative Commons Licence, email: waterdata@bom.gov.au.

The Creative Commons Licence is available in plain English text and a full legal code.


Creative Commons By Attribution logo
Unless otherwise noted, all material on this page is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution Australia Licence