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Copyright and Usage Policy


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Copyright and Usage Policy

1. General principles

  1. PacLII is a not-for-profit publisher that provides free (ie non-charged) access to individual end-users of the content it provides, to enable them to read, print and copy materials for their personal use, and any other uses permitted by copyright law.
  2. In order to provide this service, PacLII has built a collection of primary and secondary legal materials (including cases, legislation, treaties, journal articles and law reform documents) by agreements with the various sources of the documents and rights-holders in the documents, and by other means such as scanning documents where documents are out of copyright or with the permission of copyright holders.
  3. PacLII is not a data repository, in that it does not provide a service for other publishers to obtain documents from PacLII for republication. Other publishers need to obtain those documents from their original sources or by other appropriate and authorised means.
  4. In relation to all documents that it republishes, PacLII does not give permission for the value-added content that it adds to documents (including hypertext mark-up, and alternative citations) to be republished by others. This does not include any restriction on the use of neutral citations used by PacLII, whether or not developed by PacLII.
  5. PacLII places particular restrictions upon the ways in which case-law documents on PacLII can be copied and used. PacLII specifically blocks all spiders and other automated agents from accessing its case-law via the Robots Exclusion Standard. PacLII's policy is the same as nearly all similar organisations internationally. The reasons for this policy include:
    1. the need to balance personal privacy against open access, particularly in relation to general purpose search engines;
    2. the need to allow compliance with take-down, anonymisation and other modification requests from courts and parties; and
    3. the need to comply with licence conditions under which data has been provided to PacLII.

2. End Use

  1. Individual end-users of the PacLII system are free to access, copy and print materials for their own use in accordance with copyright law;
  2. In relation to case law, this is subject to (1)(e) above.

3. Copyright in content on PacLII

  1. PacLII is not the copyright owner in the source documents published on PacLII and is not able to give permission for reproduction of those source documents.
  2. PacLII claims copyright in all value-added content that it adds to source documents (including hypertext mark-up, and alternative citations). On request, PacLII usually gives permission for reproduction of examples of this content for teaching, training or similar purposes.

4. Reuse of PacLII data by other commercial and non-commercial systems

PacLII will not act as a data repository or re-supplier of source documents that it has obtained from their original sources, to other publishers for republication. This applies to both active re-supply of documents, or passive re-supply via spidering or other automated collection. Where spidering or other automated collection for these purposes is apparent, it will be blocked.

5. Provision of source documents by Courts and other data providers

  1. PacLII supports Courts and other providers of public legal information in supplying the source data for which they are responsible (cases, legislation etc) on the same basis to all publishers, both in relation to (i) ongoing supply, and (ii) maintenance of archival copies of data previously supplied.
  2. PacLII will assist Courts or other providers of public legal information in relation to (a)(ii) above if such assistance is requested.
  3. Each Court or other provider of public legal information sets its own policies in relation to such matters as privacy (including access by third party search engines), 'take down' or replacement of decisions and republication of data by third parties including copyright policies.
  4. PacLII complies with the policies of each Court or other provider of public legal information, and supports efforts to develop standards concerning such policies.

This policy may be amended at PacLII's discretion.


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