Online Application Stages ...

STAGE 1 - Customer Details

We will ask you to give us information about who you are, whom you work for (if you are applying on behalf of an organisation) and how we can contact you.

You will need to fill in your name, address and email address to continue with the online process. Please note that your licence will be sent to the email address you provide here once your application is complete.

If you are applying on behalf of a company please complete the company details to ensure a licence is created for your company rather than you as an individual.

If you are unable to provide this information you will be unable to get a licence from our online licensing system but please complete an application form and send it to the copyright section for our action.

Where possible please give all the details requested at this stage so we are able to contact you if your online application should be unsuccessful.

STAGE 2 - Product Purpose

We will ask you for information about how you want to use our material. Please note that the information you provide in this section will form an important part of your licence. If you do not provide sufficient detail, we may contact you to ask for additional information in order to confirm that you have been licensed appropriately.

Product Name - please provide the name of your product, service, article or website where the reproduced material will appear if applicable. If a name is not applicable, please enter a basic description which would be sufficient to identify rather than describe your intended use of our material, but please do not provide a detailed description here as this information is required within the 'Product Purpose' section, below.

For example:
  • 'Southampton Tides 2008', or
  • 'A book containing tidal predictions of Southampton (name not yet known)'.

Product Purpose - please describe the purpose of your product in more detail, giving as much information as possible. Please provide details of what it will be used for, who will use it, how they will use it, how many copies will be made, whether it is an analogue or digital product, what charges (if any) will be made for the product, what material (of ours) will be used within it, when it will be used/published, etc.

For example:
  • 'Southampton Tides 2008 is an A6 printed booklet that will contain tidal predictions for Southampton for 2008 and basic advertising. It will be sold to people using the Southampton area for various water-borne or coastal leisure activities at the price of £1 per book. 1,000 copies will be printed, of which we expect to sell approximately 850 copies.'

STAGE 3 - Select Material to Reproduce

We will ask you what material you want to reproduce. We will allow you to select as few or as many products as you need. If you cannot find the material you are looking for, we will give you the option to enter the details manually.

If you wish to reproduce a chart you may choose to look under:
  • Admiralty chart - a chart produced by the UKHO
  • Foreign chart - a chart produced by another hydrographic office but using UKHO material
  • Licensee chart - a chart produced by a licensee of the UKHO or other chart for any other type of chart not owned by the UKHO

A search facility allows you to search under the chart title or number for Admiralty charts, the foreign hydrographic office and title/number for foreign charts, and the licensee name and title/number of a licensee chart. For other charts not owned by the UKHO you can search under title or chart number, if your search is unsuccessful you have the facility to search further by clicking the here button that will allow a further search.

To search for UKHO publications you need to select the publication type (e.g. list of lights) and then the title of the publication from the drop down menus. Again, if you cannot find the publication you can search further by clicking the here button.

Searching for tidal predictions or harmonic constants gives you a series of drop down boxes to make choices for prediction type, year of prediction, and the port name, region and country. Please note that the year of prediction represents the year of publication (i.e. when the data was issued) not the period for which the data is valid. Therefore, if you are creating a 2009 product, it is still correct to select 2008 here.

If you cannot find the port you require, it may be because its formal name is not what you would expect (e.g. if searching for Bristol, this is not found under 'b', or even 'a' for Avonmouth, but under 'p' for Port of Avonmouth). If unsure whether you are searching for the right port name, please use the link provided to our advanced Easytide search facility to confirm its details before returning to complete your application.

Once you have completed your search, you will be shown a list of matching products and, where available, a list of editions that are available for that product (defaulting to the most recent). For publications it might also show if the publication has sub-sections you can choose. You can then add your selection to a 'shopping cart' by selecting the cart icon.

If you cannot find the product you are looking for then you can enter a description of the product under the 'other' category. The system will not be able to process your request online, but all the details you have entered will be sent to the copyright team and they will investigate the product and prepare a licence for you if possible.

Selected products are added to a 'shopping cart'. You can check your cart at any time of the selection process. It will show you a list of selected products and it will also show whether your application can be processed automatically by the system or whether it will be sent to the copyright team for manual assessment. You can also remove items from your cart if you have made a mistake.

STAGE 4 - Confirm Products

Once you have selected the material you want to reproduce, you will be shown a summary that is broken down into 3 parts:

  • Part 1 includes the material that we can grant you 100% permission to reproduce, either because we own all the intellectual property rights or have the ability to grant permission on behalf of those that do.
  • Part 2 includes the material that we cannot grant 100% permission for you to reproduce because other organisations own some or all of the intellectual property rights involved, and we cannot grant you permission on their behalf. Before you can reproduce this material, you will have to obtain permission directly from the other organisation(s) that we will refer you to within Annex 2 of your licence.
  • Part 3 includes the material you have selected where we are not able to identify the intellectual property holders automatically. You will not be able to obtain an online licence to reproduce this material, so your application will therefore be processed manually.

You can print this list by viewing the printable page and selecting print from your browser. You will see a summary of all material you have requested and the user details as they might appear on the licence.

STAGE 5 - Qualifying Questions

We will ask you to confirm that you meet one or more of the qualifying criteria for free licensing.

Question - Could the product be used for navigation?

We do not offer free licences for reproductions if people are likely to use them for navigation. However, in the case of tidal predictions, we will consider an application if you only display the times and heights of high and low tides for a single port for one year, or for up to 10 ports for a month, or for any number of ports for up to seven days.

Question - Is the reproduction within stated limits for tidal reproductions?

You can reproduce the times and heights of high and low tides for a single port for one year, or for up to 10 ports for a month, or for any number of ports for up to seven days. If you want to display tidal predictions on an open website then you can only reproduce times and heights of high and low tides for up to seven days.

Question - Do you own a copy of the product?

You must have bought (or legally obtained) the material you want to copy and continue to hold that material during the licence period. You may not borrow a copy of the material you wish to reproduce and still qualify for a free copyright licence.

Question - Will the material(s) be used in television and/or film?

If the material will be used in television and/or film you will qualify for free licence as long as the film will not be used to instruct others.

Question - Will the material(s) be displayed in reports, magazines and/or periodicals?

We grant free licences for our material to be reproduced in reports, magazines, newspapers or other regularly published documents (such as annual reports or handbooks) even though the commercial value of these documents is often more than £10,000 per year. However, we only allow you to reproduce limited amounts of our material as follows.

You will make sure that the reproduced material contains no more than the following extracts from the copyright material:

  • You may only display the times and heights of high and low tides for a year if only a single port is shown, or for a month if up to ten ports are shown, or for up to seven days if more than ten ports are shown;
  • The total area of all image extracts in a single edition of the reproduced material is less than 600 square centimetres (for example, one 20cm by 30cm extract or two 10cm by 30cm extracts from charts); and
  • The total text reproduced in a single edition of the reproduced material is less than 600 words.

If you want to reproduce more than the limits, then you may still qualify for a free licence if the total commercial value of your product is less than £10,000. Otherwise you may need to pay a licence fee.

Question - Will the material you are applying for be used for non-commercial purposes?

You will qualify for a free licence if you want to make copies of our material for your own personal use or for the internal use of your organisation.

Only select yes to this question if you do not plan to supply copies to any other person or organisation.

Question - Will the material you are applying for be used for commercial purposes, the value of which does not exceed £10,000?

As a rule, we consider that something has a commercial value if you sell it or you give it away free as it might be in competition with something that other people sell. So even if you only plan to give something away or sell it for very little (for example, for promotional purposes), it might still have a commercial value.

If you want to give away your reproductions (or sell them for a very low value) you should calculate the commercial value of you product using the average selling price for similar products. For example many organisations publish annual tide tables as small booklets or leaflets. Many charge £1 per port, per year, per copy for these. Therefore, if you want to produce similar booklets and give them away free, you should use a value of £1 per port, per year, per copy too. Therefore to qualify for a free licence you could only reproduce up to 10,000 copies per year if you include one port in the booklet.

You should calculate the commercial value on the total value of your product or service and not just on the element that you reproduce from our material. For example if you include a small reproduction of a chart on one page of a 100 page book, then the commercial value will be the total selling price of the book and not the 1% of the total selling price.

When you have answered all the questions you may select continue. You will then be asked to confirm your details and the system will tell you if your application will be processed online or if your application will need to be processed manually.

For online applications select the submit application button. This will submit your application to the online system and you will receive a draft licence by e-mail. When you receive the draft licence please read it carefully to make sure all details are correct and it covers your requirements. If you are happy with the licence then please reply to the e-mail and copy the licence details line in the email and paste this into the subject line of your reply. Once you have accepted your licence by replying to our e-mail, a full licence agreement will be e-mailed to you. You will now be covered to reproduce our material in your product subject to the conditions of the licence agreement. Congratulations!

If you have been told that your application must be processed manually, this does not mean that we cannot licence you at all, but simply that we require additional information from you before we can assess whether you qualify for a free licence. Please click 'continue' and the system will then prompt you to provide the additional information required for manual processing. When this stage is complete, your application will be assessed by the UKHO's licensing team, who will contact you with a licensing decision within 5, and certainly no later than 7, working days.

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