You own your observations and photos. The licence you choose decides how other people, such as researchers and conservation groups, may reuse them.
The Two Licences
- CC BY (Attribution): the default. Others can share and adapt your observations and photos for any purpose, including commercially, as long as they credit you.
- CC BY-NC (Attribution Non-Commercial): others can share and adapt them for non-commercial purposes only, and must credit you.
Setting Your Default Licence
- On the website, click your name or avatar and select Settings.
- Under Privacy Settings, choose your Default License.
- Click Save Changes.
Your default licence applies to observations you record on the website and in the app from then on. It covers the observation and all its photos. The licence is shown on each observation and on its photos.
Good to Know
- Licences don’t change later: an observation keeps the licence it was created with, so anyone who has already used your data can rely on it.
- Older observations created before licences were introduced use CC BY.
- iNaturalist: your observation’s licence is applied when you export it.
- NBN Atlas: records are shared with each observation’s own licence.
Tip: CC BY lets your records do the most good, because it allows researchers and conservation organisations to use them freely in published work.