Charging for OGC material

Introduction

1.  HMSO has delegated to the Office of Government Commerce (OGC) responsibility for licensing the re-use of Crown copyright and Crown database rights in material produced by OGC.

2.  For information on how to qualify for a licence, please see the "licensing criteria"

3. The purpose of this guidance is to explain the level and nature of fees which will apply for the re-use of value added material and how those fees are calculated.

4.  The licence fees quoted do not cover data supply charges, conversion into other formats or any costs relating to obtaining a copy of the material e.g.  purchasing a copy of a publication.

5.  Please note that licences issued for copyright re-use do not cover re-use of OGC's logos and trade marks, if your product uses OGC's trade marks we will provide you with the necessary information to apply to our trade mark licensing scheme.

Fees Summary

General principles

6.  Our fees are based on the following principles:

• No distinction is made between print and electronic media e.g. material licensed for re-use in a commercial CD-ROM or database product will be subject to the same fees as a commercial print publication;
• All fees cover non-exclusive world rights;
• The fees quoted cover the re-use of the material. They do not cover the supply of material or the conversion of data into other formats;
• All fees are charged on a per product or service basis. For example CD-ROM, paper
  format and translated edition are all considered to be separate products;
• Fees do not cover the typographical arrangement of published editions unless the
  Crown owns the copyright in the typographical arrangement.
• The fees quoted do not cover the re-use of any of OGC's Trade Marks or logos unless
  they appear in the text of the material being licensed. For any additional use you need to apply for a separate chargeable Trade Mark Licence from APMG.

Types of charges

7. There are two kinds of charges: royalties and annual fixed fees.

Royalties

8. A royalty is a fee that is linked to the amount of income generated from the sale of your product. They are generally payable annually. The royalty approach is used where the material is re-used in a commercial product that is offered for sale or has a commercial value.

9. For commercial use of material as part of a product, for example as a book, CD-ROM or electronic support tool, a royalty rate linked to the total sales income of the product will apply.  The rates are banded according to the proportion of your product that is made up of OGC copyright material.

10. The bands are as follows:

Example: if the OGC copyright element made up 45% of your product, the fee due would be based on the following calculation:
10% x total sales income of your product

11. For translations into other languages, the bands are as follows:

Annual fixed fees

12. Annual fixed fees are fees that are charged every year for the duration of the licence. They are usually used in the following circumstances:

• Where the quantity of material being used is small;
• Where the material will be made available commercially in a product which does not have a directly associated price;
• Where the material will be made available non-commercially free of charge.

13. Where a small amount of material is being re-used, for example one diagram and less than 1,000 words and this forms a small part of the resulting commercial product, for example less than 2%, we may charge under the "Commercial use - small scale" fee structure.

Accounting arrangements

When are payments due?
14. For annual fixed fees, the details of when payments are due will be specified in your licence.

15. For royalties, we require a formal statement of sales which shows the number of your products/services sold, the income generated and the total royalty due to us. The timetable for sending the statements to us will be specified in your licence.

Invoicing

16. We sometimes raise invoices covering a number of individual transactions. However, we do not raise invoices for amounts less than £50 (VAT exclusive). Therefore, we will waive fees where the total amount payable is less than £50. In the case of royalties, any sum due below £50 will be carried forward to the next accounting period.

17. We will issue you with an invoice showing the sum due to us. You should ensure that the invoice is paid within 30 days from the invoice date. Details of payment methods are shown on the invoice and are also detailed in the licence.

VAT

18. All fees are VAT exclusive. VAT will be charged at the appropriate rate and will be shown on the invoice issued by us.

Payment

19. Payments must be in £ sterling or Euros.

Fee exemptions

20. OGC may grant a licence free of charge where the re-use falls into the categories below: