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Copyright Issues
Publishing census information in the past required a copyright waiver. Currently those rules have been relaxed. The U.K. government's position is explained in the White Paper, The Future Management of Crown Copyright, 1996.
Our references:
http://www.hmso.gov.uk/g-note3.htm
1. In the Government White Paper, The Future Management of Crown Copyright, it was announced that copyright would be waived for certain types of material which are Crown copyright protected. One of the categories of material which is covered by waiver is unpublished Crown copyright protected public records. "
http://www.hmso.gov.uk/document/cpy-05.htm
Provision of Crown copyright public records
PRO document 15 5.5 page 6 0f 19
5.5 The Government announced in the 1999 White Paper
The Future Management of Crown copyright (Cm4300) that
Crown copyright will in future be waived in most
public records held in the Public Record Office, the
National Archives of Scotland, the Public Record
office of Northern Ireland, places of deposit of
public records appointed under the Public Records Act
1958 and any Welsh national archive that may be
established by the National Assembly for Wales.
5.5.1 Crown copyright will continue to subsist in
public records, but will not be enforced in public
records that are available to the public and that were
unpublished, or contain material that was unpublished,
at the time of when they were deposited. Users are
free to copy, index, transcribe, publish and broadcast
such Crown copyright material without formal
permission, payment of a copyright fee or
acknowledgement of copyright. The appropriate record
office's custody of the original documents must
nevertheless still be acknowledged, and the archived
document reference given.
http://www.pro.gov.uk/about/copyright.htm
http://www.pro.gov.uk/about/copyright/copyright.pdf
The 2nd one is acrobot file. If you can view it, scroll down to 7.1.1. If you can't, here is the relevant passage:
Crown copyright will continue to subsist in public records, but will not be enforced in public records that are available to the public and that were unpublished, or contain material that was unpublished, at the time when they were deposited.
Examples of such material are census returns, records of services.....Users are free to copy, index, transcribe, publish and broadcast such Crown copyright material without formal permission, payment of copyright fee or acknowledgement of copyright. The appropriate record office's custody of the original document must nevertheless still be acknowledged, and the archival document reference given. Crown copyright material among non-public records in the PRO will be treated in the same way.
