Guide to the Copyright of Third Parties Standard

Overview

The agency is obliged to seek permission to use third party material from the relevant copyright owners in cases falling under the Copyright of Third Parties Standard.

Such material on an agency’s website includes:

• that presented as content items sourced from a third party;
• downloadable items sourced from a third party; and
• content “pulled in” (eg, by web feed) from web sites outside the ownership of the agency.

Particular care should be taken when reproducing material from third party websites that those sites make available by web feed. The mere production by a web site of a web feed does not entitle others to republish copyright-protected material in that feed without the copyright owner’s permission.

The copyright of third parties statement may be combined with the copyright statement, or exist separately. 

Rationale

Agencies are not entitled to reproduce third party copyright material on their web sites without permission from the copyright owners (either directly or, in some cases, through licensees who have the right to sub-license) as reproduction without permission would constitute copyright infringement.