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Terms and conditions for copyright

The material featured on this website is subject to Crown copyright protection and licensed for use under the Open Government Licence unless otherwise indicated.

Contents

Crown copyright and our website

You may use and re-use Crown copyright information from this website (other than the Royal Arms and departmental or agency logos) free of charge in any format or medium, under the terms and conditions of the Open Government Licence, provided it is reproduced accurately and not used in a misleading context.  Where any of the Crown copyright items on this website are being republished or copied to others, the source of the material must be identified and the copyright status acknowledged.

See the Open Government Licence for the full conditions of this licence and for information on how to attribute the source of material.

The terms of the Open Government Licence also apply to user contributions, posted in our catalogue and on our user forums. See our user participation terms of use for more information.

Exceptions

The permissions above do not extend to:

  • images downloaded from our Discovery service
  • images in our image library
  • any material on this website which is identified as being the copyright of a third party. Authorisation to reproduce such material must be obtained from the copyright holders concerned

The National Archives encourages users to establish hypertext links to this site.

Digital copies of documents

The use of copies of records downloaded from our website using Discovery is subject to the following conditions. Digital copies of documents may only be used for:

  • private study or research for a non-commercial purpose
  • education purposes; in the course of instruction or examination, or in preparation for instruction or examination (by either the giver or receiver of instruction). Copies may be used, and further copies of those copies may be made for this purpose.

Applications for permission for any other use should be addressed to the image library.

Image reproduction

You can purchase high quality reproductions of images from our collections using our image library.

Under the terms of the Open Government Licence written content from a Crown copyright public record may be published by transcription, without charge.

Publication of images of the documents themselves falls within the scope of Tradable Information, for which the payment of reproduction fees applies under contract law. Find out more about our reproduction fees which apply to uses such as publication, display and broadcast.

If you are interested in commercial licensing opportunities, please go to our licensing page or email our team.

Crown copyright is either waived or has expired, therefore separate copyright clearance for publication is not required, except in the case of documents in third-party copyright.

Exceptions requiring separate copyright clearance are listed here:

Creative Commons and photo sharing

Flickr

Images from the collections of The National Archives posted on the photo-sharing website Flickr may be downloaded and reused without permission in any format for purposes of research, private study or education (non-commercial use) only.

Images from The National Archives that are part of The Commons on Flickr are labelled ‘no known copyright restrictions’ indicating that The National Archives is unaware of any current copyright restrictions on these images, either because they are Crown copyright and the copyright is waived or the term of copyright has expired. All of the images may be subject to other third party rights, such as rights of privacy. You are responsible for obtaining other such necessary permissions for reuse.

When using the images, please credit ‘The National Archives’ and include the catalogue reference of the item to allow others to access the original image or document.

Note that these terms do not apply to images posted by Flickr users other than by The National Archives of the UK, nor to associated Flickr Groups, which may have their own terms and conditions.

Wikimedia

Images from the collections of The National Archives posted on Wikimedia may also be downloaded and reused without permission in any format for purposes of research, private study or education (non-commercial use) only.

There are no copyright restrictions on these images, either because they are Crown copyright and the copyright is waived, or the term of copyright has expired. When using the images, please credit ‘The National Archives’ and include the catalogue reference of the item to allow others to access the original image or document.

Note that these terms apply only to images posted on Wikimedia by The National Archives of the UK. Other users may have their own terms and conditions.

Commercial re-use

Images from the collections of The National Archives posted on Flickr and Wikimedia are for non-commercial use only.

If you need to use images for a commercial purpose, please refer to the pages on image reproduction and the Image Library.

For further information on copyright and other forms of intellectual property (such as patents, trade marks and designs), and how to secure protection for it, see the Intellectual Property Office website. Guidance is also available from the Libraries and Archives Copyright Alliance.

Further guidance

More information can be found in the below pages on The National Archives' website.

Copyright and related rights

Two columns of the form, filled in with the same information.

Find out more about copyright and related rights related to materials held or created by The National Archives.

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