Provisional Data Terms

Version 0.1. Effective August 22, 2026.

Scope

I publish repositories, websites, APIs, downloads, releases, mirrors, and datasets. These terms govern each surface that links to them.

I claim no ownership in facts, official court records, government works, or works owned by others. Those materials retain their existing legal status, and anyone may obtain source records directly from the originating agency. These terms govern only rights I hold and conditions on services I operate.

“Covered Materials” means my original selection, arrangement, normalization, annotations, classifications, schemas, documentation, source mapping, acquisition methods, software, interfaces, and other value added work. Access or use beyond a right supplied independently by law is conditioned on acceptance of these terms.

Uses I permit

I grant permission, without royalties, to use Covered Materials for:

• personal research;
• academic research and teaching;
• journalism and public oversight;
• legal research, litigation, and representation of a client in a particular matter;
• government work and nonprofit work serving a public interest; and
• quotation or redistribution of reasonable excerpts with attribution.

Paid journalism, legal services, academic work, and consulting remain within these permitted uses when the work concerns a particular matter or analysis and the Covered Materials are neither sold as a product nor used to build a reusable commercial data asset.

Conditions

For every permitted use, I require you to:

• identify the repository or site and, when practical, the version or access date;
• preserve notices, provenance, and source references;
• distinguish source records from my derived fields and research aids;
• verify material facts against current official sources before a consequential use;
• correct a material error promptly after learning of it; and
• comply with law and any restriction that governs the source record itself.

GitHub users retain the viewing and forking permissions supplied by GitHub’s terms.

Uses that require my written commercial license

My written license is required to:

• sell, sublicense, or redistribute Covered Materials in bulk;
• offer Covered Materials through a paid database, API, search product, monitoring service, or data feed;
• publish a mirror or substitute dataset that avoids obtaining the source records independently;
• use Covered Materials to train, fine tune, evaluate, benchmark, or improve a commercial artificial intelligence or machine learning system;
• create embeddings, retrieval indexes, or reusable model context for a commercial product or service;
• enrich a commercial profile, screening product, risk score, underwriting tool, or lead generation system; or
• reproduce my source maps, coverage maps, acquisition logic, or other methods as a commercial collection service.

I may grant separate written terms for a specific project. Open an issue in the repository that supplied the data and mark it “commercial license” to request one.

Uses I prohibit

I prohibit use of Covered Materials to:

• harass, stalk, threaten, dox, defraud, or facilitate identity theft;
• target a person through a dossier assembled for abuse or intimidation;
• reidentify a person whose identity was masked, sealed, restricted, or protected;
• publish sensitive personal identifiers without a legitimate public interest;
• evade access controls, rate limits, payment controls, sealing rules, or legal restrictions;
• present a derived field as an official court finding;
• represent a repository or service as an official government system;
• knowingly publish materially inaccurate data; or
• make an employment, housing, credit, insurance, education, immigration, health care, or public benefits decision primarily from Covered Materials.

Corrections and removal requests

I accept documented correction and removal requests through the issue tracker or contact method on the surface that supplied the data. I may correct, annotate, restrict, or remove material when accuracy, safety, law, or source restrictions warrant action.

Enforcement

A material breach ends the permissions I grant under these terms. I may restore permission in writing after cure. Rights supplied independently by law remain available.

Warranty and liability

I provide Covered Materials as available for research and informational use. To the maximum extent permitted by law, I disclaim warranties of accuracy, completeness, merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, title, and noninfringement. I exclude liability for indirect, incidental, special, consequential, or punitive damages arising from use of Covered Materials.

Governing law and changes

California law governs these terms, without regard to conflict of law rules. A later version applies to access and use after its stated effective date. A more specific written agreement controls where it expressly conflicts with these terms.