Guidance - Copyright and Publishing Notices
First issued: 12 September 2000
(Revised 1 December 2009)
This guidance advises government departments and agencies on the appropriate copyright and publishing notices which must be featured in official publications.
Purpose
1. To explain to government departments and agencies (departments) the copyright and publishing notices which must be featured in official publications and other materials issued to the public. It also explains why such notices are necessary. Although this guidance is principally aimed at departments, other users of Crown copyright material, such as publishers, may also find it helpful.
2. We have also issued separate guidance on Notices on Government Websites.
Why are the various notices required?
3. Full and accurate notices are important because:
- it makes it clear to potential users who owns the copyright and what the arrangements are for re-using the material;
- in the case of Crown copyright, an appropriate copyright notice will confirm that the material has official status;
- it identifies cases where it is not necessary to obtain formal permission to re-use the material;
- it identifies any material that may be included in the publication that is not owned by the Crown;
- inclusion of publisher and International Standard Book Number (ISBN) details assists users and libraries to locate and order copies of published works;
- it is an opportunity to provide additional information about the material such as who wrote it, date of publication, where it can be obtained from and whether there have been earlier editions.
Which notices are required?
4. It depends very much on how the material is made available. For example, the notice on a free issue leaflet will be somewhat different to that appearing in a publication offered for sale. We have set out below four model statements that will cover most eventualities. We will be pleased to assist in producing variations of these notices. It is important that, if a document is made available in both hard copy and on a departmental or agency website, for example in PDF format, the same notices are used in both versions.
5. The notices covered in this guidance are:
A. copyright statement;
B. details of the publisher and an ISBN;
C. details of how the material may be re-used and whether specific permission in the form of a licence is necessary;
D. details of any material in which the copyright is not owned by the Crown, with the sources if known;
E. the department’s website address;
F. an environmental statement;
G. reference to the Data Protection Act where required.
A. Copyright statement
6. All copyright works made by officers or servants of the Crown in the course of their duties qualify for Crown copyright protection under section 163 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 (CDPA88). These copyrights are owned by Her Majesty the Queen. There is no departmental copyright. It is incorrect, therefore, to refer to works produced by government as being the copyright of a specific department. Accordingly, most of the material issued by departments should include the following statement:
© Crown copyright [followed by year in which the work was first published].
7. A department may commission an individual or a non-Crown body to produce a work on its behalf and then arrange for the copyright to be assigned to the Crown. As such works are not produced by officers or servants of the Crown in the course of their duties, they are not Crown copyright within the statutory definition of the CDPA88. In order to distinguish these works we have, in consultation with our legal advisers in the Treasury Solicitor’s Department, devised the following notice for works commissioned by the Crown:
© Queen’s Printer and Controller of HMSO [followed by the year in which the work was first published].
and in the case of works commissioned by the Scottish Administration:
© Queen’s Printer for Scotland [followed by the year in which the work was first published].
In some cases, departments may also wish to provide authorship details by adding a further line such as:
This report was prepared by * [insert the name of the author] on behalf of *[insert the name of the commissioning department]
8. For further information on copyright in works commissioned by the Crown, see Copyright in Works Commissioned by the Crown.
9. A new edition of a published work which contains substantial revisions would normally qualify as a new copyright work. For example, if a department first published a document in 1997 and subsequently revised and reissued it in 2009, the notice in the revised version would indicate the copyright date of 2009, although it would be customary - and helpful - to state that an earlier version had been issued in 1997. A reprint or new impression without any substantial changes to the text would not constitute a new copyright work.
B. Publisher details
10. It is advisable to include the name of the publisher and an ISBN in circumstances where the publications will be made available via bookshop chains, distributors and internet booksellers or sold generally. ISBNs are unique identifiers or product numbers that are invaluable when ordering publications. ISBNs also provide access to bibliographic databases, such as UKOP and the Whitaker BookBank, for which the ISBN is the main identifier. Both of these databases are used extensively throughout the booktrade and in libraries.
11. If your department does not have its own ISBN code it can obtain a unique code by contacting:
ISBN Agency
3rd Floor
Midas House
62 Goldsworth Road
Woking
Surrey
GU21 6LQ
Tel: 0870 777 8712
Fax: 0870 777 8714
e-mail: isbn.agency@nielsen.co.uk
Web: www.isbn.nielsenbookdata.co.uk
Some departments may have other unique identifiers to show the series or sponsoring unit and these should also be listed to help users identify and locate publications.
12. The following notice is an example of what would be acceptable:
© Crown copyright 2009 First [Earlier] Edition published 1994 ISBN * [Note: the ISBN is frequently featured on the back cover of publications] Published by [name of publisher] on behalf of the [name of department] or Published by [name of department]
C. Licensing arrangements
13. This provides an opportunity for the originating department to indicate the extent to which they want the material to be re-used. It also tells users who to contact for a licence. It is impossible to cater for every conceivable situation but the four notices below are designed to cover most eventualities.
Option 1
Where dissemination of the material is of prime importance and departments are content for material to be re-used without charge and without requiring a formal licence.
This would include material subject to waiver, as described in the 1999 White Paper The Future of Crown copyright. Other examples include free issue publications, leaflets and pamphlets. The originating department may also wish to point the user in the direction of other material which can be accessed on the department’s website. The following copyright notice would be appropriate in these circumstances:
You may re-use this document/publication (not including the Royal Arms and other departmental or agency logos) free of charge in any format or medium. You must re-use it accurately and not in a misleading context. The material must be acknowledged as Crown copyright and you must give the title of the source document/publication. Where we have identified any third party copyright material you will need to obtain permission from the copyright holders concerned
This document/publication can also be viewed on our website at [insert address]
Any enquiries regarding this document/publication should be sent to us at [insert contact details
Option 2
Where a department is content for the material to be re-used for research for non-commercial purposes, private study or circulated internally within an organisation, but would expect most other forms of re-use to be licensed.
You may re-use this document/publication (not including the Royal Arms and other departmental or agency logos) free of charge in any format for research, private study or internal circulation within an organisation. You must re-use it accurately and not use it in a misleading context. The material must be acknowledged as Crown copyright and you must give the title of the source document/publication.
Where we have identified any third party copyright material you will need to obtain permission from the copyright holders concerned.
This document/publication is also available at [give address of departmental website]
For any other use of this material please apply for a Click-Use PSI Licence or by writing to:
Office of Public Sector Information
Information Policy Team
Kew
Richmond
Surrey
TW9 4DU
e-mail: licensing@opsi.gsi.gov.uk
Option 3
Where the material is published by or on behalf of a government department or trading fund that has a Delegation of Authority from the Controller of HMSO. Those with a Delegation of Authority may license the re-use of the material they produce.
If you wish to re-use all or part of this document/publication, please send your application to:
[insert contact details]
Where we have identified any third party copyright material you will need to obtain permission from the copyright holders concerned.
D. Other copyright owners
14. If a department uses non-Crown copyright material, it is important that the material should be acknowledged appropriately. Departments must obtain permission from the copyright owner who will normally specify the form of acknowledgment required. This will generally be in the form below:
© [name of copyright owner] or Re-used with the permission of [name of copyright owner]
In the case of photographs, diagrams and brief extracts, it is best to identify the copyright within the main body of the text or footnotes and, where appropriate, on any acknowledgments page.
15. Similarly, if a department publishes material in an electronic format, such as on CD-ROM, and uses text retrieval software which is owned by a private sector company, this should be made apparent to users by inclusion of an appropriate copyright acknowledgment. This will be a term of any licence arrangement with the software company.
16. The typographical arrangement of published material is subject to copyright protection in accordance with sections 9(2)(d) and 11 of the CDPA88. This copyright is quite separate from copyright in the content. Copyright ownership in the typographical arrangement generally rests with the publisher unless arrangements have been made to assign the copyright in the typographical arrangement to the Crown. For a detailed explanation of this subject, see Copyright in Typographical Arrangement (HMSO Guidance Note 1). Where the copyright in the typographical arrangement rests with the publisher, we suggest that the following acknowledgment should be featured:
Copyright in the typographical arrangement of this document/publication is owned by * [specify name of publisher]
E. Department’s website address
17. If the document is also available on a department’s website, the website address should be included on the page containing the copyright information - see the sample notices in paragraph C Licensing Arrangements, Cases 1 and 2.
F. Environmental statement
18. The Government encourages suppliers to provide guidance on environmental features of their products in accordance with the Green Claims Code. We therefore recommend that the following simple claim should be included on the same page as the copyright information:
The material in this publication is constituted from 75% post consumer waste and 25% virgin fibre.
G. Data Protection
19. Anyone who publishes or makes material available that contains information about living identifiable individuals, must comply with the Data Protection Act 1998 that came into force on 1 March 2000. Information about the Data Protection Act and the obligations placed on those who process personal data can be obtained from the Information Commissioner’s website at www.informationcommissioner.gov.uk.
Conclusion
20. It must be made clear to users of official documents and websites precisely where the copyright rests and the policy for its re-use. We therefore encourage departments to ensure that this guidance is circulated widely, particularly to those individuals who have direct responsibility for arranging the publication of official material.
CAROL TULLO
Controller HMSO
Queen’s Printer