Crown Copyright

[cpnmm]

Hi,

I'm thinking of publishing some websites with content based on Crown copyright publications.

From my reading about crown copyright it seems that it is fine to publish this without running into legal problems.

The information is from UK and Canadian governments.

Has anyone any experience of using crown copyrighted material on their websites?

Thanks.

[Mike]

I don't really know what crown copyright is. What's the difference ever?:)

[chromate]

There shouldn't be any problem copying from crown copyright sites. It's public domain information.

Check the copyright details just to be sure though. If there aren't any, then I would presume it's alright.

[loads of money]

On any government website that is subject to Crown or US copyright, you need to go read the terms.

It is usually OK to use this material. Here are the terms from
a UK government website.

The Crown copyright protected material may be reproduced free of charge in any format or media without requiring specific permission. This is subject to the material being reproduced accurately and not being used in a derogatory manner or in a misleading context. Where the material is being published or issued to others, the source and copyright status must be acknowledged.

We use government copyright material all the time, but we
always acknowledge the source and read the terms.

[cpnmm]

We've been in contact with the government dept that authored the material. Initially they said they would prefer that we just linked to the articles. When we wrote back saying we wanted to make a quality resource and make their pdf documents more accessible to the public, etc, we got a nice email back saying we were free to use the information and they would keep us informed if they changed their material or brought out updates.

Since I've been in contact with several government offices about reproducing material and they've always been very helpful.

My advice if anyone has any queries about this is to email the authors - they are usually quite nice people and will be interested in your project.