5.4.2. Authorisation to reuse and conditions of reuse (full revision)

Council

The Council’s reuse policy is implemented under Council Decision (EU) 2017/1842 of 9 October 2017 on the open data policy of the Council and the reuse of Council documents. The following copyright notice should be used:

Reuse is authorised provided the source is acknowledged. The reuse policy of the Council is implemented under Council Decision (EU) 2017/1842 of 9 October 2017 on the open data policy of the Council and the reuse of Council documents (OJ L 262, 12.10.2017, p. 1, ELI: http://data.europa.eu/eli/dec/2017/1842/oj).

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See this notice in 24 languages: Council reuse notice.

Commission and executive agencies

The reuse policy of the Commission was adopted by the Commission Decision of 12 December 2011 on the reuse of the Commission documents (‘the Reuse Decision’) and further implemented by the Decision of 22 February 2019 adopting Creative Commons as an open licence under the European Commission’s reuse policy. Following these decisions, and unless any of the exceptions provided for in them apply, the Commission’s publications should be licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) licence (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).

The following copyright notice is used:

The Commission’s reuse policy is implemented under Commission Decision 2011/833/EU of 12 December 2011 on the reuse of Commission documents (OJ L 330, 14.12.2011, p. 39, ELI: http://data.europa.eu/eli/dec/2011/833/oj).

Unless otherwise noted, the reuse of this document is authorised under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) licence (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). This means that reuse is allowed, provided appropriate credit is given and any changes are indicated.

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See this notice in 24 languages: Commission default reuse notice.

Although this is not recommended, if for a justified reason a Commission service publishes its publication directly under the Reuse Decision and not under a Creative Commons licence, the following copyright notice may be used:

Reuse is authorised provided the source is acknowledged and the original meaning or message of the document is not distorted. The European Commission shall not be liable for any consequence stemming from the reuse. The reuse policy of European Commission documents is implemented under Commission Decision 2011/833/EU of 12 December 2011 on the reuse of Commission documents (OJ L 330, 14.12.2011, p. 39, ELI: http://data.europa.eu/eli/dec/2011/833/oj).

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See this notice in 24 languages: Commission alternative reuse notice.

The above rules apply to the executive agencies, which should follow the editorial policy of the Commission. More information regarding the Commission’s reuse policy and copyright rules applicable to publications can be found in the documents Reuse Guidelines* and Guidelines on Publications*.

Court of Auditors

On 16 April 2019, the Court of Auditors approved a specific policy on the reuse of its publications. The recommended copyright notice is:

The reuse policy of the European Court of Auditors (ECA) is implemented under Decision of the European Court of Auditors No 6-2019 on the open data policy and the reuse of documents. Unless otherwise indicated (e.g. in individual copyright notices), the ECA’s content owned by the EU is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) licence. This means that reuse is allowed, provided appropriate credit is given and changes are indicated. The reuser must not distort the original meaning or message of the documents. The ECA shall not be liable for any consequences of reuse.

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See this notice in 24 languages: Court of Auditors reuse notice.

Other institutions, bodies, offices and agencies

Depending on their own editorial policies, the rest of the institutions and bodies may apply different conditions of reuse to their respective publications. The usual wording of the copyright notice is:

Reproduction is authorised provided the source is acknowledged.

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See this notice in 24 languages: Reproduction authorised.

Where justified, strict conditions may be applied:

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The Publications Office promotes the reusability of the publications of all institutions, bodies, offices and agencies in any event, following the guiding principles of Directive (EU) 2019/1024 of 20 June 2019 on open data and the reuse of public sector information. Services that want to make their publications more open may use the wording ‘reuse authorised’ and apply the conditions mentioned above.

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For any questions, contact the service in charge of copyright at the Publications Office (OP-COPYRIGHT@publications.europa.eu).