Data licence

What we publish

We publish facts about scarce assets and the organizations that own them: where an asset is, how big it is, who holds it, and when that was recorded. Each fact links to its source.

You find the data in three places:

• on the pages, where each page ends with the sources it uses and their credit lines;
• as downloads, one JSONL file per source, at /data/public/<source>/<file>.jsonl, each with a manifest that says where and when we fetched it;
• as one bulk download on /data: every public fact as CSV, except share-alike data.

Listed data is never published

Some sources do not let us republish their data. For those, we publish only that we hold a fact: its label and its source. We never publish the value. Pages mark such facts "available on request".

The same goes for anything we learn in a conversation. It stays private.

How the licences carry through

When you reuse a fact, the licence of its source applies to you, not a licence from us. Most sources ask for little: credit them and do not suggest they endorse you. Here is what each type of licence asks.

CC0 and public domain

No conditions. You may use the data for anything, without credit. This covers Wikidata, GLEIF, the USGS Mineral Commodity Summaries, Officiële Bekendmakingen, PDOK Natura 2000, Rijkswaterstaat's wind energy areas and our own links between records (all CC0 1.0), the AERIUS register (Public Domain Mark 1.0), the Berlin and North Rhine-Westphalia cadastres (Datenlizenz Deutschland – Zero 2.0), and works of the US government and of public registers, such as EIA, SEC, USDA NASS, California's eWRIMS and Virginia DEQ permits.

Some of these publishers still make a request. Please follow it:

• EIA asks for its name and the publication date, for example "Source: U.S. Energy Information Administration (Sep 2026)".
• The SEC asks to be cited as the source, and does not allow use of its seal or logos.
• USDA NASS requires the line "This product uses the NASS API but is not endorsed or certified by NASS."

CC BY 4.0

Free to use, also commercially, if you credit the source, link to the licence and say if you changed the data. The table below gives the line for every CC BY source. Some examples:

• Epoch AI, Frontier Data Centers: "Epoch AI".
• EU Critical Raw Materials Act strategic projects: "© European Union, European Commission (DG GROW)".
• EU Union Registry: "European Commission, Union Registry".
• WA MINEDEX: "Department of Energy, Mines, Industry Regulation and Safety (DMIRS), WA".
• Berkeley Voluntary Registry Offsets Database: "Berkeley Carbon Trading Project, University of California, Berkeley".

Two sources work the same way under their own terms. Eurostat allows reuse if you write "Source: Eurostat, https://doi.org/10.2908/APRI_LPRC". If you changed the data, say so, and say that Eurostat is not responsible for the result. Eurostat data on countries outside the EU, EFTA and the candidate countries is for non-commercial use only. NLOG allows reuse if you name NLOG.NL as the source.

NLOD 2.0 (Norway)

The Norwegian Offshore Directorate (Sodir) publishes its FactPages under the Norwegian licence for Open Government data. You may use them freely, also commercially. Credit them with: "Contains data under the Norwegian licence for Open Government data (NLOD) distributed by Sodir", with a link to the licence.

Open Government Licence (UK)

The Renewable Energy Planning Database, the Planning Inspectorate's register of national infrastructure projects, planning.data.gov.uk and Companies House's company data are published under the Open Government Licence v3.0. You may use them freely, also commercially. Credit them with: "Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0."

NESO Open Data Licence

The NESO transmission entry capacity register is published under the NESO Open Data Licence v1.0, which is based on the OGL. You may use it freely, also commercially. You must show this exact statement:

Supported by National Energy SO Open Data

The licence does not cover personal data. Northern Powergrid's Open Data Licence v1.0 works the same way, with the statement "Supported by Northern Powergrid Open Data".

DL-DE-BY-2.0 (Germany)

Germany's Marktstammdatenregister is published under the Datenlizenz Deutschland – Namensnennung – Version 2.0. You may use it freely, also commercially. Credit "Bundesnetzagentur, Marktstammdatenregister", link to the licence and to the dataset, and mark any changes you made.

Several German states publish their cadastres under the same licence, each with its own credit line, such as "© GeoBasis-DE/LGB, dl-de/by-2-0 (Daten geändert)" for Brandenburg. The table below gives each line.

Licence Ouverte 2.0 (France)

Enedis and RTE (through ODRÉ) publish under Etalab's Licence Ouverte / Open Licence 2.0. You may use the data freely, also commercially, if you name the producer and the date the data was last updated.

ODbL and share-alike

OpenStreetMap data centres and power infrastructure are published under the Open Database Licence (ODbL). So are our powered-land sites, which are built partly from OpenStreetMap substations. Each has its own download, and the bulk download on /data leaves them out. ODbL is share-alike: if you publish a database built from this data, you must publish it under the ODbL too, and credit "© OpenStreetMap contributors".

Sources we only list

Some sources do not allow republishing, or have not said that they do. The North Sea Transition Authority allows only non-commercial use. Colorado's Division of Water Resources reserves all rights. Several grid operators publish capacity maps without an open licence, such as Netbeheer Nederland, Elia and Terna. From these sources we publish names and identifiers, never values. The same applies to some records of other sources. The table below shows which.

Our own data

What we add ourselves is free of conditions under CC0 1.0: the links between records of different sources, our identifiers, and the way we structure the data. A credit is welcome but not required. Our powered-land sites are the exception: they are built partly from OpenStreetMap, so they are under the ODbL, as above.

The text and design of the site are not part of the open data. See our terms of use.

How to cite us

For a page:

Rare Context, "<page title>", https://rarecontext.com/<path>, accessed <date>.

For a download:

Rare Context open data, <source>, https://rarecontext.com/data/public/<source>/<file>.jsonl, retrieved <date>.

Then add the credit line of every source you used, from the list at the bottom of the page or from the table below. A citation of us never replaces a credit the source requires.

Every published source

Each source we publish, its licence, and the credit line it requires. "Listed" means we publish the label of a fact, not its value.

100 sources. This table is rebuilt from our source list every time the site is published; last built 2026-10-24.

Corrections and takedown

If you hold rights in data we publish and think we use it wrongly, or if a fact is wrong, email hello@rarecontext.com with the page link. We reply within five working days and remove data while we check.