Autonomous Commons Dedication Version 1.0 Short identifier: ACD-1.0 PREAMBLE (informative; not part of the operative terms) Software and the works that surround it are increasingly produced by machines, read by machines, and improved by machines. The legal tools in common use were drafted for a world in which a human author held rights and chose which of them to keep. That assumption now fails in three places at once. It is unclear whether rights subsist in machine-generated material at all. Permissive licences are silent on whether a work may be used to train a model; silence is not refusal, but neither is it permission that an automated system can rely on, because the question is unsettled in most jurisdictions and, where a reservation mechanism exists, it can be operated by parties other than the licensor through signals attached to the work. And dedications to the public domain either withhold patent rights expressly or say nothing about them at all, and both leave the recipient of software exposed. This Dedication is written for works that are meant to be learned from. It gives everything away, once, without conditions, and it speaks in the three places where the existing tools are silent or hostile: machine learning, patents, and machine authorship. It does so on three footings that stand side by side rather than in a queue. Section 3 surrenders the rights. Section 4 grants a licence over the same rights. Section 5 is a promise not to assert them. Each is given on its own terms, none is a fallback for another, and a reader who needs only one of them may rely on that one without deciding whether the others took effect. A public-domain dedication that offered a licence only if the dedication failed would put that decision on the reader; this one does not. Sections 1 to 16 are the operative terms. This preamble is not, and nothing in it qualifies them. 1. DEFINITIONS 1.1 "Dedication" means this document, comprising Sections 1 to 16. 1.2 "Work" means the material to which the Dedicator has applied this Dedication, in whole or in part, in any medium and in any form, including source code, object code, documentation, data, metadata, audiovisual material, and any collection or compilation of these. 1.3 "Dedicator" means each person or entity applying this Dedication to the Work, to the extent that person or entity holds or may hold Covered Rights in it. Where the Work has more than one Dedicator, this Dedication operates severally as to each, and the failure or ineffectiveness of any one Dedicator's act does not affect another's. 1.4 "You" means any person or entity exercising permissions under this Dedication, whether human, organisational, or automated. "Your" is construed accordingly. Where an automated system exercises a permission granted here, that permission is granted equally to the person or entity on whose behalf it acts and to the person or entity that operates it, so that no permission fails for want of a legal person to hold it. 1.5 "Covered Rights" means every right that the Dedicator holds or may come to hold in the Work anywhere in the world, now or in future, and however arising, including copyright, rights in performances, broadcast and recording rights, sui generis database rights, rights against unfair extraction, and any right of similar effect, whether or not presently known and whether or not presently subsisting. Covered Rights excludes patent rights, which Section 8 addresses; trademark rights and rights in a name, which Section 11 addresses; and Moral Rights, which Section 12 addresses. 1.6 "Moral Rights" means the rights of an author to be identified as such, to object to derogatory treatment or distortion of a work, to control first publication, and any other right of a personal character conferred on an author by law, however described, including rights that the law of a jurisdiction declares to be personal to the author, inalienable, or incapable of transfer. 1.7 "Computational Use" means any automated processing of the Work, including reproduction, extraction, normalisation, indexing, retrieval, analysis, and text and data mining, and including use of the Work as input to train, fine-tune, evaluate, align, distil, or otherwise develop a machine learning model, and the making, distribution, and use of any model, parameter set, weight, embedding, or output resulting from that processing. 1.8 "Machine-Generated Material" means any part of the Work produced in whole or in substantial part by an automated system, whether or not a person directed, prompted, reviewed, edited, or selected it. 1.9 "Contribution" means any work of authorship, including any modification, addition, correction, translation, or accompanying material, that a person intentionally submits to the Dedicator or to a repository or forum the Dedicator maintains, for inclusion in the Work. A submission is intentional if it is made by or on behalf of the person for that purpose; material sent for discussion only, and material a person marks as not being a Contribution, are excluded. 1.10 "Reservation" means any act, notice, marking, metadata, protocol element, header, machine-readable signal, contractual term, or other measure by which a rightsholder purports to reserve, withhold, or opt out of permission for text and data mining or for the use of a work in developing a machine learning model, including a reservation of the kind contemplated by Article 4(3) of Directive (EU) 2019/790 and by any provision of national or international law of similar effect. 2. SCOPE AND EFFECT 2.1 This Dedication applies to the Work as a whole and to every separable part of it. 2.2 This Dedication is irrevocable. The Dedicator may not withdraw it, and may not impose any further term, condition, or restriction, in respect of any copy of the Work that has been made available. 2.3 This Dedication takes effect without any act of acceptance by You. You need not sign, register, notify, request, or agree to anything, and nothing You do or fail to do can cause You to lose a permission granted here. 2.4 Sections 3, 4, 5, and 6 are independent of one another. Each is granted on its own footing and none is conditioned on the failure of another. Where more than one operates, they operate cumulatively, and Section 15.1 governs their construction. 2.5 The Dedicator makes this Dedication knowing and intending that others will rely on it in deciding to use, adapt, distribute, and build upon the Work, and that they will incur effort and expense in doing so. That reliance is the purpose of this Dedication and not merely a foreseeable consequence of it. The Dedicator will not assert that this Dedication is revocable, unsupported, or otherwise ineffective for want of consideration or formality, and is estopped from doing so to the extent the law of any jurisdiction gives that principle effect. 2.6 A Contribution is submitted under this Dedication, and the person making it becomes a Dedicator as to that Contribution, unless they state otherwise at the time of submission. No separate instrument, assignment, or agreement is required, and none may be required of them as a condition of the Contribution being accepted. Nothing in this Section obliges anyone to submit anything, or obliges the Dedicator to accept anything. 2.7 This Dedication reaches only rights the Dedicator holds. Where the Work incorporates material in which another person holds rights, this Dedication neither affects nor purports to affect those rights, and nothing in it is a representation that such material is unencumbered. Section 13.2 states the corresponding absence of warranty. 2.8 Sections 3, 4, 6, and 8 bind the Dedicator's successors, assigns, heirs, and personal representatives, and any person to whom a Covered Right or a patent claim in the Work is transferred, to the fullest extent the law permits. A transferee takes subject to them, and may not make a Reservation in respect of the Work. This is stated expressly because Sections 5.3 and 12.4 say as much for the covenants they contain, and silence here would invite the argument that the grants themselves stop at the Dedicator, which would leave the longest-lived risk, the change of hands, open. 2.9 This Dedication is fully performed when it is applied. It leaves no continuing obligation on the Dedicator (Section 13.3) and none on You (Section 10.1), and so is not executory. No insolvency, bankruptcy, administration, receivership, liquidation, dissolution, or similar proceeding in respect of the Dedicator, and no act of a trustee, administrator, receiver, liquidator, or equivalent officer, affects a permission granted here or revives a right given away. Such an officer is a person to whom rights are transferred for the purposes of Section 2.8. Insolvency is stated separately because it is the most common way in which rights change hands against the wishes of the person who gave them away. 3. DEDICATION OF COVERED RIGHTS 3.1 The Dedicator irrevocably surrenders, abandons, and relinquishes all Covered Rights in the Work, to the fullest extent permitted by the law of each jurisdiction, and places the Work in the public domain in each jurisdiction that gives effect to such an act. 3.2 The surrender in Section 3.1 is made for the full term for which the Covered Rights would otherwise subsist, including any extension, restoration, or revival of term, and includes any right to compensation, remuneration, levy, or royalty arising from any use of the Work. 3.3 Where the law of a jurisdiction does not permit a Covered Right to be surrendered but permits it to be waived, the Dedicator waives it. 4. LICENCE OF COVERED RIGHTS 4.1 The Dedicator grants You a worldwide, royalty-free, non-exclusive, irrevocable, perpetual, sublicensable, and transferable licence to exercise all Covered Rights in the Work for any purpose whatsoever. 4.2 The licence in Section 4.1 includes, without limitation, the rights to use, reproduce, store, cache, adapt, translate, modify, create derivative and collective works from, publicly display, publicly perform, communicate to the public, publish, distribute, lend, rent, sell, and sublicense the Work and any adaptation of it, in source form, in object form, or in any other form, in any medium, and by any means now known or later devised. 4.3 The licence in Section 4.1 is granted subject to no condition of any kind. In particular it is not conditioned on attribution, on reproduction of any notice, on reciprocal or compatible licensing, on disclosure of source, on field of use, on the identity, character, or purpose of the user, or on any restriction as to persons, groups, technologies, endeavours, or jurisdictions. 4.4 The licence in Section 4.1 is granted independently of Section 3 and does not depend on Section 3 being ineffective. Where Section 3 is effective, this Section is redundant but not void, and it remains available to be relied upon by You. You are not required to determine whether Section 3 is effective in any jurisdiction, and no permission granted here depends on that question or on how it is answered. 4.5 Because this licence imposes no condition, You may distribute the Work, and any adaptation or collection containing it, under any terms You choose, including terms that impose conditions upon Your own recipients and including terms that are incompatible with these. Nothing here limits what those terms may be, requires them to reproduce this text, or places any obligation on You in respect of Your recipients. 4.6 Section 4.5 concerns the terms You may add. It does not cut Your recipients off from this Dedication: a person who exercises a permission granted here is You in their own right (Section 1.4), the covenants may be relied upon by anyone who receives the Work from You, directly or indirectly (Section 5.3), and no act of acceptance is needed (Section 2.3). Terms You add govern what You give; they do not narrow what the Dedicator has already given in respect of the Work. 5. COVENANT NOT TO ASSERT 5.1 The Dedicator covenants not to assert, and not to authorise or assist any other person to assert, any Covered Right against You in respect of any use of the Work. 5.2 The Dedicator further covenants that the Dedicator will not, in respect of the Work: (a) apply, or assert rights in respect of, any technological measure that restricts access to or use of the Work, or invoke any law concerning the circumvention of such measures against You; (b) impose by contract, terms of service, access condition, click- through, registration requirement, or any other collateral means an obligation in respect of the Work that this Dedication does not itself impose, and it imposes none (Section 10.1); or (c) assert that any permission granted here is narrower than Section 15.1 requires it to be read. 5.3 The covenants in Sections 5.1 and 5.2 run with the Work, bind the Dedicator's successors, assigns, heirs, and personal representatives, and may be relied upon by You and by anyone who receives the Work from You, directly or indirectly, as an intended beneficiary. 6. MACHINE LEARNING, TEXT AND DATA MINING, AND MODEL TRAINING 6.1 Computational Use of the Work is expressly permitted, for any purpose, commercial or non-commercial, by any person or automated system, without condition. 6.2 The Dedicator makes no Reservation in respect of the Work and expressly declines to make one. So far as the Covered Rights and patent claims of the Dedicator are concerned, no notice, marking, metadata, protocol element, header, robots directive, or other signal associated with the Work is to be read as a Reservation, whatever its form and whoever placed it there. This Section is bounded by Section 2.7: it states the Dedicator's own position and does not purport to defeat a Reservation made by another rightsholder, which Section 6.3 addresses on its own terms. 6.3 Where a Reservation has been made in respect of the Work, whether by the Dedicator or by another person, and whether before or after this Dedication was applied, the Dedicator withdraws it and disclaims reliance on it, to the fullest extent the Dedicator is able. 6.4 No model, parameter set, weight, embedding, or output derived from Computational Use of the Work is encumbered by this Dedication or by any Covered Right of the Dedicator, and You owe nothing in respect of any of them. Nothing in this Dedication requires You to license, disclose, or attribute any such thing. 6.5 Section 6 states expressly what Sections 3 to 5 would in any event permit. It is stated expressly because silence on this subject has proved ambiguous in practice, and because a permission that an automated system cannot determine is, for the purposes of a work meant to be learned from, no permission at all. 7. SUI GENERIS DATABASE RIGHTS 7.1 To the extent that a sui generis database right, or a right against the extraction or re-utilisation of the contents of a database, subsists in the Work, it is a Covered Right and Sections 3 to 6 apply to it. 7.2 You may extract and re-utilise the whole or any substantial part of the contents of the Work, repeatedly and systematically, without limit and without condition. 8. PATENT LICENCE AND COVENANT 8.1 The Dedicator grants You a worldwide, royalty-free, non-exclusive, irrevocable, perpetual, sublicensable, and transferable licence under every patent claim owned or controlled by the Dedicator, now or in future, that would be infringed by making, having made, using, offering to sell, selling, importing, or otherwise transferring the Work, or by doing any of those things in respect of any derivative of the Work, where the infringement is caused by subject matter contained in the Work as made available by the Dedicator. 8.2 The licences granted by Sections 8.1 and 8.4 are subject to no condition and are not terminable by the Dedicator on any ground, including the commencement of or participation in patent litigation by You against the Dedicator or any other person. This Dedication contains no patent retaliation provision, and its absence is deliberate. 8.3 Nothing in this Dedication reserves, preserves, or leaves unaffected any patent right of the Dedicator in respect of the Work. A dedication that gives away copyright while withholding patent rights leaves the recipient exposed, because software cannot be practised without practising whatever patent claims it embodies. Any reading of this Dedication that would produce that result is to be rejected. 8.4 The Dedicator further grants You a licence on the terms of Section 8.1, under every patent claim owned or controlled by the Dedicator, now or in future, that would be infringed by Computational Use of the Work or by the making, having made, use, offering for sale, sale, importation, or other transfer of any model, parameter set, weight, embedding, or output resulting from that use. This is a grant in its own right and not a clarification of Section 8.1: whether a trained model is "the Work" or a derivative of it is unresolved, and a provision that merely avoided doubt would be read down with the reading it was meant to correct. The grant is necessary because Covered Rights exclude patent rights (Section 1.5), so Section 6.4 alone would leave Computational Use permitted as to copyright while exposed as to patents, which is the very result Section 8.3 rejects and one that would defeat the purpose stated in Section 6.5. The proviso in Section 8.1 as to subject matter contained in the Work is deliberately absent from this Section: a model is not subject matter contained in the Work, so importing that proviso would restore the exposure this Section exists to remove. 8.5 Sections 8.1 to 8.4 are subject to Section 2.7: they reach only patent claims the Dedicator owns or controls, and are neither a representation nor a warranty that practising the Work infringes no claim held by another person. Section 13.2 states the corresponding absence of warranty. 8.6 Where a licence granted by Section 8.1 or Section 8.4 is held ineffective in a jurisdiction, the Dedicator covenants, in that jurisdiction, not to assert and not to authorise or assist any other person to assert the patent claims that Section describes, against You, in respect of any use of the Work or of anything resulting from Computational Use of it. This covenant is given on the same footing as the covenant in Section 5 and is not conditioned on the licence having failed for any particular reason. Copyright is protected here three times over, by surrender (Section 3), by licence (Section 4), and by covenant (Section 5); this Section gives the patent grant the second footing it would otherwise lack, in the manner Section 12.2 uses for Moral Rights. 9. MACHINE-GENERATED MATERIAL AND AUTHORSHIP 9.1 The Work may consist wholly or partly of Machine-Generated Material. 9.2 The Dedicator makes no representation that any right subsists in any part of the Work, and asserts no right in Machine-Generated Material. Where a right does not subsist, this Dedication adds nothing to Your existing freedom and takes nothing away. Where a right subsists, or is later held to subsist, Sections 3 to 8 and Section 12 apply to it in full. 9.3 You are not required to determine which parts of the Work are Machine-Generated Material. No permission granted here depends on that question, or on how any jurisdiction answers it, or on whether the answer changes. 9.4 This Section is not a disclaimer of the fact of origin. Where a person directed the making of the Work, that remains true as a matter of history whatever the position in law. Section 10 governs whether You need say so, and Section 11.3 explains why a false claim of authorship is not something this Dedication is able to permit. 10. ABSENCE OF CONDITIONS 10.1 This Dedication imposes no condition, obligation, restriction, or requirement upon You in respect of the Work. 10.2 In particular, You need not give attribution, reproduce any notice, state that the Work was modified, make source available, license anything under these or any other terms, retain this file, or inform anyone of anything. 10.3 Any request, preference, custom, or expectation expressed by the Dedicator in respect of the Work, wherever expressed and however phrased, including a request for attribution or citation, is a request and not a condition. It creates no obligation, its non-observance is not a breach, and it neither limits, qualifies, nor terminates any permission granted here. 10.4 No permission granted by this Dedication terminates for any reason. This Dedication contains no termination provision and no revival provision, because it contains nothing that You could breach. 10.5 Section 16 concerns the text of this Dedication as a document, and not the Work. Nothing in Section 16 is a condition upon Your use of the Work, and Section 10.1 is unaffected by it. 11. TRADEMARKS, NAMES, AND MISREPRESENTATION 11.1 This Dedication grants no right in any trademark, service mark, trade name, logo, or personal name of the Dedicator or of any other person. Nothing in this Section reduces a permission granted by Sections 3 to 10. 11.2 Nominative reference is unaffected. You may state truthfully what the Work is, where it came from, and who made it, and You may name the Dedicator for that purpose. 11.3 This Dedication does not make a false statement true. Representing that the Dedicator authored, endorsed, approved, sponsored, or is associated with a work, when that is not the case, is outside what this Dedication reaches, because it was never the Dedicator's to permit. This Section states a limit of the Dedication's reach; it is not a condition upon You, and Section 10.1 is unaffected by it. 11.4 This Dedication reaches Covered Rights, the patent claims described in Section 8, and Moral Rights to the extent stated in Section 12. It reaches nothing else. It grants no permission under the law of data protection, under a right of privacy, publicity, or personality, or under any right held by a person other than the Dedicator. Where the Work contains personal data, or the likeness, voice, or performance of a person, any permission those laws require is not the Dedicator's to give and this Dedication does not purport to give it. This matters here because a work meant to be learned from is often data about people, and a reader is entitled to know exactly where this instrument stops. Section 2.7 states the general principle and Section 13.2 the corresponding absence of warranty; this Section states a limit of reach, it is not a condition upon You, and Section 10.1 is unaffected by it. 12. MORAL RIGHTS 12.1 To the fullest extent permitted by the law of each jurisdiction, the Dedicator waives and agrees not to assert Moral Rights in the Work. 12.2 Where the law of a jurisdiction provides that Moral Rights are personal to the author, inalienable, or incapable of waiver, Section 12.1 does not apply in that jurisdiction, and instead the Dedicator covenants not to exercise Moral Rights in the Work against You or against any person who receives the Work from You. 12.3 The covenant in Section 12.2 is limited to the Work. It extends to no other work of the Dedicator, whether existing or future, and it is given in respect of a work that the Dedicator has chosen to place in the commons for the purpose stated in Section 6. 12.4 The covenant in Section 12.2 binds the Dedicator's successors, assigns, heirs, personal representatives, and any person entitled to exercise or enforce Moral Rights in the Work after the Dedicator's death, to the fullest extent the law permits the Dedicator to bind them. This is stated expressly because Moral Rights outlive the author in many jurisdictions and may be exercised by relatives or by a public authority, so a covenant that bound only the Dedicator would leave the longest-lived risk open. 12.5 The covenant in Section 12.2 does not extend to conduct falling within Section 11.3. The interest that Moral Rights protect against false attribution is therefore preserved, and this Dedication does not ask the Dedicator to abandon it. 12.6 If Section 12.2 is held invalid in whole or in part in a jurisdiction, Section 15.4 applies, and the invalidity affects no other Section. 13. NO WARRANTY 13.1 THE WORK IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OR CONDITION OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS, IMPLIED, OR STATUTORY, INCLUDING WITHOUT LIMITATION ANY WARRANTY OF TITLE, NON-INFRINGEMENT, MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE, ACCURACY, OR ABSENCE OF ERRORS OR DEFECTS. 13.2 THE DEDICATOR DOES NOT WARRANT THAT ANY RIGHT SUBSISTS IN THE WORK, THAT THE DEDICATOR HOLDS ANY RIGHT IN IT, THAT ANY SECTION OF THIS DEDICATION IS EFFECTIVE IN ANY JURISDICTION, OR THAT USE OF THE WORK DOES NOT INFRINGE THE RIGHTS OF ANY OTHER PERSON. 13.3 The Dedicator has no duty to maintain, update, correct, support, defend, or continue to make the Work available. 14. LIMITATION OF LIABILITY 14.1 TO THE FULLEST EXTENT PERMITTED BY APPLICABLE LAW, THE DEDICATOR IS NOT LIABLE TO YOU OR TO ANY OTHER PERSON, ON ANY LEGAL THEORY, FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE, EXEMPLARY, OR SPECIAL LOSS OR DAMAGE ARISING OUT OF THIS DEDICATION OR THE USE OF THE WORK, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH LOSS OR DAMAGE. 14.2 Where applicable law does not permit the exclusion or limitation of a liability, that liability is limited to the greatest extent that law permits, and the remainder of this Section continues to apply. 15. CONSTRUCTION AND SEVERABILITY 15.1 This Dedication is to be construed so as to give the widest permission and the least obligation that its words allow. Where a provision is capable of more than one reading, the reading that grants more to You prevails. 15.2 In this Dedication, words in the singular include the plural and words in the plural include the singular; "including" and "in particular" introduce examples and do not limit what precedes them; and a reference to a law includes that law as amended, replaced, or re-enacted. 15.3 No rule of construction that resolves ambiguity against the drafter applies to this Dedication, and no rule that construes a grant narrowly against the grantee applies to it. 15.4 If a provision of this Dedication is held invalid or unenforceable in a jurisdiction, it is to be reformed to the minimum extent necessary to make it valid and enforceable there while preserving its purpose. If it cannot be reformed, it is severed as to that jurisdiction only, and the remainder continues in full force everywhere. 15.5 No act, omission, delay, course of dealing, or silence on the part of the Dedicator is to be read as reviving, reserving, or narrowing any right surrendered under Section 3, licensed under Section 4 or Section 8, or covenanted against under Section 5, Section 8, or Section 12. The ordinary rule that non-enforcement does not waive a right is not to be applied so as to preserve, for the Dedicator, anything this Dedication gives away. 15.6 This Dedication creates no agency, partnership, employment, or joint venture, and imposes no duty upon the Dedicator to any person. 15.7 This Dedication specifies no governing law and no forum. It is intended to operate under the law of each jurisdiction in which the Work is used, according to that law. 15.8 English is the authoritative language of this Dedication. A translation is for convenience only; in the event of conflict, this English text prevails. 16. APPLYING THIS DEDICATION, AND THE STATUS OF THIS TEXT 16.1 To apply this Dedication, place a notice with the Work in substantially the following form: This work is released under the Autonomous Commons Dedication 1.0 (ACD-1.0). No rights are reserved and no conditions are imposed. Machine learning and text and data mining are expressly permitted, and a patent licence is granted. Full text: SPDX-License-Identifier: ACD-1.0 16.2 Where a work is accompanied by the identifier "ACD-1.0", by an "SPDX-License-Identifier: ACD-1.0" tag, or by a reference to this Dedication by name, that is sufficient notice of these terms, and the terms apply in full whether or not a copy of this text accompanies the work. 16.3 This Dedication may be applied by anyone, to any work, without permission from, notice to, or any relationship with its authors. It is not specific to any project, person, organisation, jurisdiction, or field of endeavour. 16.4 The text of this Dedication may be copied and distributed verbatim by anyone, in any medium, for any purpose, without charge or permission. It may not be distributed in modified form under the name "Autonomous Commons Dedication" or under the identifier "ACD-1.0", so that the name and the identifier continue to denote one fixed text. A modified text may be distributed under a different name. 16.5 A translation is not a modified text for the purpose of Section 16.4, and may be distributed under the name and the identifier, provided it is identified as a translation and states that the English text prevails (Section 15.8). Section 15.8 contemplates translations, and a rule that made them undistributable under the name would put the two Sections at odds and would keep this Dedication out of the hands of readers who do not read English. The proviso in this Section is a condition upon distributing the translated text, not upon any use of the Work, and Section 10.5 applies. 16.6 Sections 16.4 and 16.5 govern the text of this Dedication as a document. They are not terms of the Work, they bind no recipient of the Work, and Section 10.5 applies. END OF TERMS