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Guidance on UDCC Licences for publication, research and multiple use
Copyright
The content of the Universal Decimal Classification is the copyright of the UDC Consortium (UDCC) and the formal permission of the UDCC is needed to reproduce any parts of the UDC, including translation. The UDCC was founded under Dutch law as a Stichting (a sort of charitable foundation operating on a not-for-profit basis) and is officially registered.
Operation of the UDCC
Preparation and maintenance of the UDC, and the general operation of
the UDC Consortium, is carried out in accordance with the UDCC Articles
of Association and Bye-laws under the authority and direction of an Executive
Committee comprising a small number of major publishers who contribute
funding and resources for the basic operation of the UDCC.
Other funding necessary to recover the operational expenses of the UDCC
comes, for example, from licence fees, other subscriptions and sales of
products.
Among other responsibilities, the Executive Committee assigns priorities
and funding to a permanent Editor in Chief who manages the vital, annual
programme of research and consultation to develop and maintain the UDC
database, known as the Master Reference File (MRF). This is re-issued
to Executive Members and licensees each January. The annual publication
of Extensions and corrections (November/December) summarizes that year’s
changes to the MRF and invites comment on proposals for future change;
it also includes a wide range of articles or reports from a variety of
contributors in the fields, for example, of information science, classification
and management.
Support for users
The UDCC is committed to supporting other bodies who wish to make it easier for users to access, understand or use the UDC and products employing the UDC that are of greatest value to them, whether in the original language edition or in translations and whatever the extent of reproduction.
Safeguarding the IPR in UDC
The UDCC is committed to take action against any party that reproduces UDC material without proper permission. In this way we aim to safeguard the intellectual property in the UDC and the contributions made by UDCC members for its maintenance and development.
Authorized reproduction
Through their support for the UDCC operation, and their status in the
organization, each Executive Member of the Consortium has an automatic
and exclusive right to reproduce UDC material in their own language: at
present, these languages are English, French, Russian and Spanish.
The UDCC also offers a range of licences for publishers of the UDC in
other languages and for other users or suppliers to help their own communities
of UDC users.
The Executive Members have each agreed to negotiate bi-lateral agreements
with any other publisher who wishes to include parts of, or the whole
of, an Executive Member’s edition in their own publications, for
example in bi-lingual or multi-lingual editions.
A recent survey identified that, during the last 40 years, 61 different
editions of the UDC had been published in 38 different languages. The
survey did not verify how many of those editions were still available.
Since the early 1990’s the UDCC has issued approximately 80 licences
of various types, not all of which are current.
You DO NOT need a licence if you buy a physical copy (e.g. printed, CD-ROM) of a UDC edition for use by one person at a time for reference purposes, whether for your own private use, or for use in your organization’s collection of reference materials.
You DO need a licence if you want to do any one or more of the following to the whole of the UDC Master Reference File (MRF) or any selection from the MRF:
- reproduce it
- translate it
- convert it to a different medium (e.g. from print to digital or vice versa),
- make single copies available to more than one person at a time, e.g. via a copy stored on your local intranet, or to a closed community via the internet.
- distribute copies
- create your own products that incorporate any part of the MRF or the whole of it (see also “Research and Development” below).
Research and Development
The UDCC grants new licences from time to time to users or to researchers who can present a case to the UDCC to exploit directly the benefits of the UDC or to see how the UDC might help in the development or use of other tools or applications. Computer-based applications, in particular, are an appropriate vehicle for use of UDC because of its clear analysis and structure and, in many instances, it is possible to conceal the complex workings of the classification from the end user.
Licence applications
Once an application is approved and the fee paid, a licence grants the
licensee formal permission to create or reproduce UDC material from the
MRF, or to distribute copies of existing products or create and distribute
new products, whether in the form of printed material or on CD or accessible
on their own intranet or on the internet.
Unless such formal permission is granted a publisher or user of a UDC
product or service will breach international copyright law, and the UDCC
will take action against them.
Assurance to users
Knowledge that a licence has been issued gives the user of a UDC product
the assurance that the licensee is an approved, legitimate source of an
authorized UDC product and that the licensee has access to the most up
to date source material.
The approvals process by which the UDCC issues a licence helps the UDCC
to ensure that only responsible organizations issue UDC products, that
the licensee has access to the latest UDC content, and that the licensee
commits to a process to safeguard the content of their UDC product in
a similar way to the Consortium safeguards the master reference material.
A user should avoid purchasing or using a copy of a UDC product or service
from an organization that cannot demonstrate it has an official licence
from the UDCC. Such products are very unlikely to be up to date, and are
very unlikely to follow the approved rules associated with the UDC itself
and the UDC revision process. The UDC Consortium will take formal action
against any such publisher or distributor, one consequence of which is
very likely to be the enforced withdrawal and destruction of their UDC
products or services as a result of their breach of copyright.
Licences support UDC maintenance
The existence of a licence also provides assurance that the licensee, through their annual fees, is helping to sustain the maintenance process to ensure the UDC is kept up to date. Unlicensed publishers or distributors are simply stealing copyright material without any regard for the costs or quality of the maintenance programmes and, thus, are potentially damaging the perceived integrity and quality of UDC products.
Communication
Although the relationship between the UDC Consortium and each licensee is almost exclusively concerned with a formal contract, each UDCC licensee also has an opportunity to act as a channel of communication between the UDCC and the communities served by the licensee. Such feedback from actual users has high value to the UDCC for ongoing maintenance.
Fees
The cost of a licence to use the MRF varies according to its nature, as follows:
- Publishing: 1300 euro p.a. (i.e. for company or organization business use)
- User: 650 euro p.a. (i.e. for individual business use)
- Research and Development: 650 euro (normally issued for up to 1 year only)
- Internet: 3150 euro p.a. (i.e. for use on a public network)
- Intranet: 1575 euro p.a. (i.e. for use on a private, secure network)
- Consumer: 130 euro p.a. (i.e. for private interest or use)
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