Digital Strategy for Leipzig and Region

Open access requires that the use of data for any purpose by any person or group is permitted without having to justify their actions. The information should be accessible without physical and technical barriers via programming interfaces such as the Open Data Finder (open.destination.one) are provided. About the Open Data Finder External providers can use API (interface) or widget to pull the open data from Leipzig and display it via digital applications such as apps, PWAs, digital information columns or websites. A successful example of the use of open POI data via API is the Notenspuren app the city of Leipzig. 

Free access means that no license fees or other compensation for the use of the data. In general, the work as a whole should preferably over the internet be available. The free use of the licensed work through appropriate licenses - Creative Commons - made possible. Free access contributes to the widespread dissemination of the data.

The terms of use of open data are regulated by licenses. These include the unrestricted use, distribution, modification, linking and refinement of the data. These licenses are necessary because every new work of intellectual creation is automatically subject to strict copyright protection from the moment it is created, without the need for a copyright notice or registration. 

In practice, this means that the use of these works requires a contractual agreement between the author and user. We are happy to support you with legally approved model contractswhich you can use as a contractual basis between you and your photographer.  

Please contact us directly about this. 

The non-profit organization Creative Commons offers pre-formulated and modular license agreements for self-determined use by authors or rights holders. These are legally complete and flawlessly formulated. This means that not every individual user has to ask for permission to distribute the content or to use it as a starting point for new creations. By granting Creative Commons licenses, the author has clearly and irrevocably defined how his works of creation may be used.

Before publishing data with CC licenses, the content must be checked beforehand. Violating the copyrights of the producers or the image and personal rights of the people depicted can have legal and financial consequences. Furthermore, data quality and technical availability are important criteria for publishing data with CC licenses.

The following checklist can help you check whether images are suitable for open data CC licenses:

• Are there people in the photo? Can you clearly see faces and is anyone looking at the camera? –> Image not suitable
• Several people are pictured at an event, but none of the people stand out and the people are not clearly identifiable (e.g. due to editing with blur, shooting from the side or from behind) –> the image is added to the selection
• One or more people are depicted in the background of a landmark/landscape, but none of the people stand out and the people are not clearly identifiable (e.g. due to editing with blur, shooting from the side or from behind) –> the image is added to the selection
• Are in the picture protected trademarks or other well-known markings (icon for Facebook, Instagram as an example), names of hotels, restaurants? –> Image not suitable
• Are in the picture Pets shown that are clearly recognizable? –> not suitable, as commercial use of these images is prohibited without the consent of the author
• Are other works of art or monuments recognizable in the picture? -> additional copyright check necessary
• Are there any listed buildings visible in the picture? -> additional copyright check necessarywhether the photo was taken in public space (freedom of panorama). Especially if other objects such as people, trees, streets are visible, it can be assumed that freedom of panorama applies.
• Does the picture show objects of particular creative value (e.g. handmade dishes, designer clothes)? –> Image not suitable, since the commercial use of these images is prohibited without the consent of the author.

In practice, it is sometimes difficult to distinguish whether the respective exception applies. For this reason, we generally recommend refraining from publishing images with CC licenses if people are shown in a recognizable manner.

Images that have already been purchased or commissioned can generally be be subsequently CC-licensedThe prerequisites for this are:

• The author of the images and possible rights holders are clearly known.
• Sole and complete (unrestricted in terms of time, space and content) usage rights to the images exist.
• The author and, if applicable, other rights holders give their written consent for the publication of the data with CC licenses.

However, this procedure is quite complex, especially if there are several rights holders to the image. That's why it's always an advantage if the images are already purchased with CC licenses!

To purchase images with CC licenses or to have them relicensed, we offer you Sample contracts for the following licenses:

• CC BY = Attribution
• CC BY SA = “Share Alike” = naming the author, obligation to pass on under the same conditions
• CC BY ND = "No Derivatives" = naming the author, editing of the work is not allowed

Would you like to purchase images with CC licenses and need a contractual basis? Then please contact Jamina Mertz by email ().

Another feature of Open Data is the use of a machine-readable, open and non-proprietary data formatMachine-readable data formats are those that can be further processed by a computer. Not all information recorded in electronic form is automatically machine-readable; for example, a PDF file is easy for people to read, but remains difficult to access for automated further use.

Machine-readable, structured data plays a key role in search engines plays a crucial role. Thanks to a uniform label (schema.org) it is possible that they can be understood directly by machines.

Schema.org can be understood as a language for data. If these schemas are used by all providers, data can be related to each other. 

For hotels, for example, it means that basic information such as the address, geocoordinates, number of rooms or star category are available in a predefined structure. Regardless of whether you retrieve the data via a search engine, Alexa or a digital information column - the machine understands the content and can output it regardless of the application.

LTM GmbH has already transferred a large part of tourism and convention data to the nationwide data hub (SaTourN) and opened it with open data licenses. 

From here, the data is entered into the Knowledge Graph of German Tourism (DZT) and the subgraph for business tourism (GCB). There, they are widely available and available for further use in a modern data architecture. 

Here you can check whether your organization is already digitally positioned:

DZT Knowledge Graph