Crown copyright

Crown Copyright: The United Kingdom

Crown copyright applies to all works produced by the British Government subject to the condition that the qualification "Where a work is made by Her Majesty or by an officer or servant of the Crown in the course of his duties" is met. The Crown can also have copyrights assigned to it. There is also a small class of materials where the Crown claims copyright due to Letters Patent. This material includes the King James Bible and the Book of Common Prayer.

However, some documents have Crown Copyright waived by the government, subject to certain conditions. This was introduced in a white paper in 2000 in order to improve access to government publications. There are 11 classes of copyrights that waivers are granted for. The Her Majesty's Stationery Office (HMSO) document concerned is .

Websites are reproduceable unless otherwise indicated, but HMSO has stated in correspondence that they do not consider material under Crown Copyright redistributable under the GFDL. For example, documents on the website of the " are subject to the following conditions:

"The material featured on this site is subject to Crown copyright protection unless otherwise indicated. The Crown copyright protected material (other than the Royal Arms and departmental or agency logos) may be reproduced free of charge in any format or medium provided it is reproduced accurately and not used in a misleading context. Where any of the Crown copyright items on this site are being republished or copied to others, the source of the material must be identified and the copyright status acknowledged.

Images on this site may not be reproduced without payment of a fee to the Image Library.

The permission to reproduce Crown protected material does not extend to any material on this site which is identified as being the copyright of a third party. Authorisation to reproduce such material must be obtained from the copyright holders concerned."

Documents subject to waivers vary from time to time. The current list may be found the on official site .

The duration of Crown copyright varies depending whether material is published or unpublished. Unpublished material was originally subject to Common Law copyright protection in perpetuity. However, the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 removed this concept from British law. Transitional provisions apply for 50 years after the entry into force of the 1988 Act which mean that no unpublished material will lose its copyright protection until 1 August 2039. New Crown copyright material that is unpublished has copyright protection for 125 years from date of creation. Published Crown copyright material has protection for 50 years from date of publication. Those works protected under Letters Patent have perpetual copyright claimed over them despite being published. However, this claim is of very limited jurisdiction. It only applies to the United Kingdom, and even then not to all parts of the United Kingdom. The only area where it certainly applies is England itself. Works where copyright is assigned to the Crown by an author are subject to the normal term of protection for that particular type of work, for example life of the author plus 70 years for a literary work.

Crown Copyright: Canada

Crown copyright in Canada covers all documents created by the Government of Canada or the government of provinces (the Crown in the right of Canada or i.e., Crown in the right of Ontario, Quebec, Nunavut, etc..). While the governments of Canada claim copyright on everything it is doubtful that all of these claims are realistically enforceable. Exceptions such as the text of laws, orders-in-council or the text of judicial decrees and opinions are sometimes considered in the public domain. There is judicial authority in Canada that a judge's decisions cannot be copyrighted. See: Jockey Club v. Standen (1985) 8 C.P.R.(3d) 283, 288 (B.C.C.A.).

For example the Queen's Printer for Ontario claims copyright in Ontario statutes, regulations and judicial decisions. However, the Queen's Printer permits any person to reproduce the text and images in the statutes, regulations and judicial decisions without seeking permission and without charge, essentially putting the material in the public domain; however it is not identical with it being in the public domain as the Crown is reserving its moral rights. This may not be applicable in other countries, such as United States, that do not recognize moral rights in their copyright laws. The only caveat is that the materials must be reproduced accurately and the reproduction must not be represented as an official version and should be acknowledged in the following form:

© Queen's Printer for Ontario, 200__.† This is an unofficial version of Government of Ontario legal materials.

† — The year of first publication of the legal materials is to be completed.

Section 12 of the Canadian Copyright Act states that the Canadian government owns the copyright of any work that has been prepared or published by or under the direction or control of any government department subject to any agreement. Crown copyright exists for fifty years from the date of publication.