united-states
Commercial usage of governmental or university data (USDA)
<p>Since I started using food and fitness apps I always was wondering where their data is coming from. Some of the apps are referencing sources that often are websites like:</p>

<ul>
<li><a href="http://www.glycemicindex.com" rel="nofollow noreferrer">http://www.glycemicindex.com</a> (University of Sydney)</li>
<li><a href="https://ndb.nal.usda.gov/ndb/search/list" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://ndb.nal.usda.gov/ndb/search/list</a></li>
</ul>

<p>Well, I browsed the websites and googled a lot to find some information about the license used but I haven't found any information. Do the apps steal the data, pay for it or is it okay to use it (even commercially) if they mention the source?</p>

<p>Maybe this question sounds odd for US citizens but I'd be very glad if someone could clear things up for me.</p>

<p>I don't know what it means to "steal data", unless you mean "illegally break into a computer and copy hidden files". Also, I'm not sure what you mean by "data" (the "data" vs. "conclusion" distinction is not a legal one: a GI is not data, it is a conclusion based on applying an algorithm to observational data). In the case of the USDA site, the data appears to be largely provided by the manufacturer (perhaps to comply with a law about nutritional fact reporting), but maybe figures are culled from scientific publications. The Sydney site seems to be culled from published scientific literature or in some cases their own research.</p>

<p>The reported facts are not protected by copyright, so the only way to legally prevent others from knowing those facts is to physically not make the information available, i.e. keep it hidden on your hard drive, or on slips of paper in your house. Somebody could steal the paper (a crime) or hack into the hard drive (a crime), but if you've made the facts public, they are out there for anybody to use.</p>

<p>In the case of the USDA site, owing to US copyright law, that web page is a government work and not protected by copyright, so you can copy the content wholesale, art and all. That is not the case with the Sydney site. But even with the Sydney site, you can copy the facts (e.g. you can write down the fact that Divine Date spread has a GI of 29).</p>
