Terms of Use

1 Scope of Application, amendments

1.1 The Max Planck Society for the Advancement of Science e.V., Sub-Section of Informatics, Hofgartenstraße 8, 80539 Munich, Germany, (hereinafter referred to as MPII) operates an online portal for scientific purposes (hereinafter referred to as the “portal”) at the Internet address https://www.cityscapes-dataset.com/.

1.2 The following Terms of Use regulate the relationship between the users of the portal and MPII. 

1.3 MPII reserves the right to amend these Terms of Use at any time, also with respect to persons already registered, if this becomes necessary due to changes in the law, changes in jurisdiction, changes in economic circumstances or if loopholes in these Terms of Use subsequently become apparent. The user will be informed of such amendments by email in due time. The user may object to the amendments within 14 days of receipt of this email. If the user does not object to the amendments and continues to use the portal after the deadline for objection, the amendments shall be deemed effective as of the expiry of said deadline. If the user objects to the amendments within the two-week deadline, MPII shall be permitted to exclude the user from using the portal. The user will also be informed of these consequences in the email.

2. Subject of use, availability of the service

2.1 The portal serves as a platform for a scientific community consisting of users working on the development of algorithms for the control of autonomous vehicles as part of the research project “Cityscapes”.

2.2 In particular, this involves software-based object recognition and distinction in traffic spaces. For this purpose, a fixed repertoire of video and image data comprising approximately 270,000 individual images (hereinafter referred to as ” dataset”) is available to users via the portal. These are recordings of traffic scenes from public transport in various major German, French, and Swiss cities. It is expressly not guaranteed that the dataset is technically or mathematically correct; it may contain errors. There is no legal claim to the availability of a modified or error-free dataset.

2.3 Portal users can upload the result data of algorithms they have developed themselves, allowing a comparison of the research results. For this purpose, MPII provides a so-called benchmark test on the website that evaluates the uploaded research results. Comparability is ensured by providing all users with the same image datasets as a basis for application.  The results are published on the website https://www.cityscapes-dataset.com/ at the user’s request, subject to approval by MPII. This is done either under a pseudonym, or, at the user’s request, by providing additional metadata such as a description and properties of the algorithm or corresponding scientific publication.

2.4 MPII is committed to ensuring the uninterrupted usability of the portal; however, there is no legal claim to the use of the portal. MPII reserves the right, at its own discretion, to make changes to the portal at any time and without notice, to discontinue its operation, or to exclude individual users from accessing the portal. Furthermore, it cannot be guaranteed that temporary restrictions or interruptions will not occur due to technical issues (e.g. interruption of the power supply, hardware and software errors, technical problems in the data lines).

3. Authorization to use, registration

3.1 In order to download the dataset and upload result data, the user must register in advance at https://www.cityscapes-dataset.com/register/. Registration is free of charge.

3.2 Only persons affiliated with a body that pursues scientific interests are authorized to use the portal. Furthermore, the use of the portal is only permitted for the purposes specified under 2.1 to 2.3.

3.3 The scientific interest in the use of the dataset must be adequately demonstrated. In order to accelerate the registration process, an email address from the domain of the body pursuing scientific interests as well as the name and website of this body should be used for the registration. In addition, a link to a scientific online profile can be provided.

3.4 The user is obligated to provide complete and accurate information during the registration process, particularly his/her real name. 

3.5 As a rule, the registration process or the manual activation of the user account may take several days. There is no obligation on the part of MPII to activate the account. MPII reserves the right to reject individual registration applications without reason or to request further adequate proof of identity.

3.6 If the data provided by the user changes after registration, the user is obligated to update the data in the user account without delay. The user is responsible for ensuring that said data is kept up to date.

3.7 MPII reserves the right to block or delete a user account if the user violates these Terms of Use.

4. Rights of use

4.1 After successful registration, MPII shall grant the user the basic right to use the dataset, limited in time to the duration of the user relationship, and limited in content to the intended scientific purposes of use. The user is therefore permitted to duplicate and process the dataset and parts thereof for the purpose of automated object analysis, in particular to analyze it.

4.2 The user is strictly not allowed to make the contents of the dataset or other contents of the protected portal area accessible to third parties.  The same applies to modified versions of these datasets or works derived from these datasets, insofar as it is possible to reconstruct or derive the datasets from these works. However, the user is free to use parts of the dataset in accordance with the provisions of § 60c of the German Copyright Act (UrhG). 

4.3 The user shall grant MPII the basic and gratuitous right to use the data uploaded by him/her, unrestricted in terms of time and content. The data may be used by MPII exclusively for scientific purposes.

5. User obligations

5.1 The user may use the portal exclusively for the intended purposes. In particular, he/she must not misuse the portal. He/She shall not engage in any activities in connection with the portal that violate applicable law, infringe upon the rights of third parties, or violate the regulations for the protection of minors. Furthermore, he/she shall refrain from using any programs, algorithms, or other software in connection with the use of the portal that may interfere with the functioning of the portal. In particular, before uploading data to the portal, the user shall make a reasonable effort to ensure that the data does not contain any malware. Furthermore, the user shall not perform any actions that may result in an unreasonable or excessive strain on the infrastructure of the portal or cause disruptive interference with it.

5.2 If the dataset is used outside of the portal in accordance with the right of citation pursuant to § 51 UrhG, the following publication must also be indicated in a footnote: “M. Cordts, M. Omran, S. Ramos, T. Rehfeld, M. Enzweiler, R. Benenson, U. Franke, S. Roth, and B. Schiele, “The Cityscapes Dataset for Semantic Urban Scene Understanding,” in Proc. of the IEEE Conference on Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition (CVPR), 2016.” When citing in the context of digital publications, it is sufficient to include the following URL as a hyperlink: https://www.cityscapes-dataset.com/.

5.3 The access details to the portal must be kept confidential. The user must ensure that it is not accessible for unauthorized third parties. This includes, in particular, the selection of a secure password (at least eight characters consisting of upper and lower case letters, numbers, and symbols). It is the user’s responsibility to ensure that his/her user account is used exclusively by him/her or by persons authorized by him/her to use the user account.

5.4 The user is solely and entirely responsible for the secure storage of the data generated by him/her. He/She is obligated to keep backups of the uploaded data. 

5.5 The user shall ensure that emails from MPII can reach him/her at the email address provided during registration and, in particular, that these cannot be intercepted by spam filters or similar technical settings. 

5.6 If the user has reason to believe that unauthorized third parties have gained possession of the password, the password must be changed immediately, or the existing login must be blocked by MPII.

5.7 If a user should notice obvious errors in the portal, which might be used for the misuse of the portal or the contents contained therein, the user is obligated to report the error to MPII without delay.

6. Liability

6.1 MPII is not liable for the correctness, completeness, reliability, currentness, and usability of the contents provided.

6.2 MPII has unlimited liability for malice and gross negligence. For slight negligence, MPII is only liable for damages to human life, body, health or an essential contractual obligation (i.e., the fulfillment of which is a prerequisite for the proper execution of the contract and on whose fulfillment the contractual partner regularly relies and may rely).

6.3 In the case of a slight negligent breach of essential contractual obligations, the liability of MPII is limited to the amount of the foreseeable, and typically expected damage. Otherwise, liability is excluded.

6.4 The above limitations of liability shall also apply to the legal representatives and vicarious agents of MPII.

6.5 MPII is not liable for the loss of a user’s data. The user is solely responsible for the secure storage of his/her data.

7. Data protection

7.1 The user is aware that the dataset may contain personal data of road participants (e.g. vehicle license plates or images of persons) and that the use of the dataset therefore constitutes data processing as defined by the data protection regulations, in particular the General Data Protection Regulation (DSGVO).

7.2 The user is solely responsible for compliance with the statutory rules of data protection when using the dataset. Before use, he/she must ensure that the processing is permissible for his/her intended purpose. If image or video material is distributed or published outside the portal, the user must anonymize the material beforehand. The user also has the option of downloading an anonymized image substitute provided by MPII via the portal. 

7.3 The user is not permitted to actively identify individual persons, e.g. by determining the owner of a vehicle. The data shall be deleted as soon as it is no longer required for the above-mentioned commercial purposes.

7.4 MPII shall process the personal data of users in accordance with the provisions of the data protection regulations. Detailed information can be found in the privacy policy, available at: https://data-protection.mpi-klsb.mpg.de/inf/www.cityscapes-dataset.com.

7.5 The user expressly agrees that the communication within the scope and for the execution of the user relationship between him/her and MPII shall also take place via unencrypted emails. He/She is aware that unencrypted emails provide only a limited level of security and confidentiality.

8. Concluding provisions

8.1 The contractual relationship shall be governed exclusively by the laws of the Federal Republic of Germany, excluding the UN Convention on Contracts for the International Sale of Goods.

8.2 Should individual provisions of these Terms and Conditions, including this provision, become invalid in whole or in part, the validity of the remaining provisions shall remain unaffected. The invalid or missing provisions shall be replaced by the applicable statutory provisions.

8.3 If the user is a merchant, a legal entity under public law, or a special fund under public law, the place of jurisdiction for all disputes arising from and in connection with contracts concluded under these Terms and Conditions shall be the registered seat of MPII.

License agreement

This dataset is made freely available to academic and non-academic entities for non-commercial purposes such as academic research, teaching, scientific publications, or personal experimentation. Permission is granted to use the data given that you agree to the terms of use (above) and:

1. That the dataset comes “AS IS”, without express or implied warranty. Although every effort has been made to ensure accuracy, we (Daimler AG, MPI Informatics, TU Darmstadt) do not accept any responsibility for errors or omissions.
2. That you include a reference to the Cityscapes Dataset in any work that makes use of the dataset. For research papers, cite our preferred publication as listed on our website; for other media cite our preferred publication as listed on our website or link to the Cityscapes website.
3. That you do not distribute this dataset or modified versions. It is permissible to distribute derivative works in as far as they are abstract representations of this dataset (such as models trained on it or additional annotations that do not directly include any of our data) and do not allow to recover the dataset or something similar in character.
4. That you may not use the dataset or any derivative work for commercial purposes as, for example, licensing or selling the data, or using the data with a purpose to procure a commercial gain.
5. That all rights not expressly granted to you are reserved by us (Daimler AG, MPI Informatics, TU Darmstadt).