Open Data & Open Source

VehiclesDB includes an open layer and a commercial layer. This page explains what is open, under which license, and what the open licenses do and do not include. This notice is informational; the governing texts are the license files themselves and, for the commercial layer, the Terms of Service.

1. The Open Dataset

The public VehiclesDB dataset (the vehicle identity catalog published in the vehiclesdb/vehiclesdb repository) is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0), as stated in that repository. Each released version remains licensed under the license under which it was released (CC BY 4.0 is irrevocable for released copies; continued hosting of any particular version is not promised). Attribution must be provided as described in the repository's attribution file, including any source-specific notice wording it contains.

What CC BY 4.0 does not give you. CC BY 4.0 licenses copyright and similar rights only. It expressly does not license trademark or patent rights (CC BY 4.0 § 2(b)(2)). Vehicle make and model names appear in the dataset as plain-text facts to identify vehicles; they are trademarks of their respective owners, and no trademark rights of any kind are granted or implied. You are solely responsible for your own use of any third-party name or mark. The dataset contains no logos or brand imagery. Identity-layer fields returned by the commercial API correspond to this Open Dataset and remain independently obtainable from the public repository under CC BY 4.0; the commercial terms govern access to the Services and the proprietary enrichment and resolution layers, not your rights in the openly licensed material itself.

No warranty; no liability. The Open Dataset is provided as-is and as-available, without warranties or conditions of any kind, and, to the maximum extent permitted by law and by CC BY 4.0 § 5, without any liability on our part. Data is compiled from official registers and other sources that themselves contain errors; no accuracy, completeness, or fitness for any purpose is warranted. The prohibited-reliance rules in the Terms of Service § 9 (no consumer reporting, no DPPA-restricted use, no safety-critical use) reflect uses the Open Dataset is not designed or warranted for, and you proceed at your sole risk.

Future releases. We make no commitment regarding future releases of the Open Dataset, their cadence, contents, or licensing.

2. Open-source components

We publish open-source components (for example, SDKs, gems, and UI widgets such as vehicle make/model pickers). Each component is governed by the open-source license included in its repository (typically MIT). Notes that apply to all of them:

• The code license covers the code. Any bundled snapshot of the Open Dataset remains licensed under CC BY 4.0 as described above, not under the code license.
• API calls are governed by the API Terms. If a component calls the VehiclesDB API, those calls and the returned Content are governed by the Terms of Service and API Terms, including caching limits and Third-Party IP rules, regardless of the component's code license.
• No trademark rights. Neither the code license nor the dataset license grants any right to the VehiclesDB Marks (see the Trademark Policy) or to any third-party mark or logo. If a component offers optional display of third-party brand imagery via external services, you enable and use that at your own risk, under your own account with, and subject to the terms of, the relevant external service.
• No warranty. Open-source components are provided as-is per their licenses, without support obligations.

3. Plate artwork

Plate-design artwork we publish (emblems, schematic plate renders) is governed by a per-file license ledger: files sourced from Wikimedia Commons carry their original license (public-domain files may be reused freely; attribution-licensed files carry the attribution stated in the ledger), and our own schematic renders are released under the dataset license where included in the open dataset. Some emblems are official insignia whose use is restricted by non-copyright laws (for example, official-arms and heraldry statutes) independently of any license we can grant — those files are flagged in the ledger, and you are responsible for your own use. Schematic renders use sample serials; they depict formats, not real registrations.

4. Contributions

Unless a repository states otherwise, by submitting a contribution to any of our open repositories you license your contribution under that repository's license and represent that you have the right to do so.