Data Licensing

Last modified: May 27, 2014

Through openFDA, you can access a wide variety of public data that the FDA collects and publishes in machine-readable formats. We want you to fully understand the rights around this data so that you can accurately use openFDA in your work.

Terms of Service

The terms of service govern how you may access openFDA as a service. Use of the data made available via openFDA is generally unrestricted, however, the service through which we make that data available is offered subject to your acceptance of those terms and conditions as well as any relevant sections of the FDA Website Policies.

As noted in the terms of service, unless otherwise noted, the content, data, documentation, code, and related materials on openFDA is public domain and made available with a Creative Commons CC0 1.0 Universal dedication. Under CC0, FDA has dedicated the work to the public domain by waiving all rights to the work worldwide under copyright law, including all related and neighboring rights, to the extent allowed by law. You can copy, modify, distribute and perform the work, even for commercial purposes, all without asking permission.

Important CC0 Considerations

  • In no way are the patent or trademark rights of any person affected by CC0, nor are the rights that other persons may have in the work or in how the work is used, such as publicity or privacy rights.
  • Unless expressly stated otherwise, the person who associated a work with this deed makes no warranties about the work, and disclaims liability for all uses of the work, to the fullest extent permitted by applicable law.
  • When using or citing the work, you should not imply endorsement by the author or the affirmer.

Exemptions

In the future, if we post data that may not be covered under the terms listed above, we will specify the data (or specifc fields inside a dataset) that is not covered and the copyright status of that work here.