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Judge, E. F. (2011). Crown copyright and the reuse of government information: Access and limitations. In P. Garvin (Ed.), Government information management in the 21st century : International perspectives (pp. 211-222). Burlington, VT: Ashgate Pub.

Add to intro? “Copyright protects original expression in literary, dramatic, musical and artistic works”. (Judge, p. 211). There are some considerations being made in the Canada, U.K., Australia and New Zealand in regards to the “reuse of Crown-copyrighted material, through new licenses” (Judge p. 213-14).

Canada: Crown copyright commonly relates to works created by government employees during their government careers, either commissioned or completed during a regular workday (Judge, p. 212). In Canada Crown copyright also applies to “primary law, but there are certain circumstances however when reproduction is allowed. “The reproduction of statutes, consolidations of legislation, judicial reasons for judgments, and administrative tribunal decisions is covered by the Reproduction of Federal Law Order" (Judge, p.214) the reproduction of primary law is also permissible as long as it is represented as a reproduction and is accurate. There is also open access online to versions of case law and statutes. Canada has implemented a variety of open data portals for GIS data as well as a geographical information license (Judge, p. 215). In Canada, open data projects can also provide some content. Aside from specialized GIS licensing, license negotiations and agreements must be made to the Crown Copyright and Licensing department. Anyone in need of crown copyrighted material must submit a request for permission. Those seeking printed works may submit a request on publications.gc.ca (Judge, p.215).

United Kingdom: In addition to works produced by employees in the workplace, Acts of Parliament and works from the legislative body of the Church of England. Crown copyright in the UK also covers parliamentary materials – Parliamentary copyright including those created by crown individuals for the House of Commons and House of Lords (Judge, p.216). In the UK there are allowances for the use of a select amount of copyrighted works (waivers), without the need for prior permission. For materials that still require a license, there is an online application process. Like Canada, materials used must be accurately represented.

European Union: European Union countries “exempt primary source law from copyright protection, the European Union does not have a uniform law on copyright subsistence or copyright ownership of government documents and does not mandate that laws be in the public domain” (Judge, p.217). The EU has also given free and open access to official government documents online for European parliament (Judge, p.217).

Australia: The term for Crown copyright in Australia is 50 years after creation. Unpublished works are permanently protected by Crown copyright. In 2005, a report issued by Australia’s Copyright Law Review Committee, that supports a repeal of Crown copyright provisions, which would “respect statuatory provisions respecting employer ownership of works authored by employees and contractual arrangements for assigning copyright in commissioned works (Australia 2005, Crown Copyright Report, Recommendation 16, xxxiii). By 2009, there were recommendations to change Crown copyright, allowing Crown copyrighted works to be licensed and given open access (Australia 2009, Engage: Getting on with Government 2.0 Taskforce, 10-11).

New Zealand Crown copyright would apply as long as no other copyright agreement had been made. In 2001, primary law and other official works were removed from Crown copyright protection. Like Australia, New Zealand is considering the implementation of open licenses for works protected by Crown. copyright.

Exceptions: While raw data is free from copyright protection – the creation of any work based on raw data (i.e. GIS) is protected.

E-PETITION & REVIEW: There was an e-petition submitted to The House of Commons in 2017, which asserts that the Canadian Crown Copyright protocol needs to be updated to allow access and distribution rights to Canadians. The e-petition argues that "access to government information and the ability to distribute and encourage its reuse" is critical to society. The petition also states that Crown copyright issues has prevented libraries from engaging in the access and preservation of government information. Following the 2017 petition, The House of Commons responded and informed the petitioners about a review, which began in June 2018 and will resume September 2018. ADD Citation petition/review