Digital guide: working with open licences/Applying the open licensing requirement

The open licensing requirement applies to all of your project materials unless third party rights or other exceptions apply. This section provides a step-by-step approach to meeting the open licensing requirement at each stage of your project.

Stage one: Planning your project

When developing your project idea, you should consider what digital materials you will produce and how they will be publicly shared.  

Start by making a list of all of your expected outputs, for example:

• an audio guide
• images and videos of your project
• web content or galleries

Then, identify the rights that could exist in these outputs and who owns them. You do not need to submit this list with your application.  

At this stage you should consider whether materials are appropriate for digital access or open licensing. For example, this may require seeking exceptions for ethical reasons – see the exceptions section of this guide.

Remember, at this point you are just planning your project and creating a list to guide your project submission and its management, if successful. You should not start work on your project, including collecting permissions, until your award has been made and you have formal permission to start. Even so, it is important to make any project partners aware of The National Lottery Heritage Fund open licensing requirement.  

Stage two: Submitting your application

Your submission should mention any key digital outputs that the project will produce and release according to the open licensing requirement. You should indicate whether third party or sensitive materials may require exceptions.

If your application is successful, you can use your list from stage one to work out how the open licensing requirement applies to your materials and any materials you use.  

The next section includes a guide to help you think this through.  

Making a list of outputs and rights

Your list should itemise:

• new materials
• pre-existing materials
• rights that might exist

This documentation will be useful for getting permission to apply an open licence, getting an exception to use an alternative licence if necessary, and crediting the creators.  

New materials include:

• a photograph of the project taken by a team member or volunteer
• a virtual tour of a UK wildlife habitat
• a website about whale migration patterns in the UK
• digital reproductions of new creative works produced during a project workshop

Entirely new materials are subject to the open licensing requirement and must be released under the CC BY 4.0 license or CC0 1.0 tool. Exceptions can be requested.

Pre-existing materials include:

• a botanical engraving scanned from a book in your collection
• digitised entries from a diary donated to your organisation  
• a digitised video of an interview made by an unknown journalist in your archive
• a digitised collection of photographs owned by donors

Third parties may hold rights in these materials and must consent to the open licensing requirement.  

Rights in the materials might include:

• copyright
• performers’ rights
• database rights
• contractual rights
• privacy and personal data protections
• no rights

These rights are discussed in the introductory section on copyright.

Exceptions:  

Finally, consider whether any exceptions are appropriate. The exceptions section of this guide can help you identify these and how to proceed.

Stage three: Starting your project

If your project is successful, you will be able to begin immediately following formal permission to start.  

You should make sure partners and collaborators are aware of the open licensing requirement as early as possible. These conversations can shape the way you:

• organise your materials and the project workflow  
• collect formal permissions, where necessary  
• mark materials with an open licence  
• credit and acknowledge any rights holders  
• release outputs  

This process will make the output management and publication more efficient. The first step is getting informed consent from third parties to apply for an open licence.  

How do I get informed consent to use an open licence?

Ask third parties to grant permission to licence their materials. Make sure to get their permission in writing. You can do this in an email, a signed electronic document or hard copy form.  

Make sure third parties understand how you intend to use the materials and any implications of open licensing. For example, you could share this guide with them, or any other resources that you find helpful.

What if consent to use an open licence isn’t given?

Ask for a licence to use the materials for your organisation’s own purposes.  

The National Lottery Heritage Fund does not expect you to ask for an assignment of rights or exclusive licence:

• Assignments require third parties to hand all rights in a work over to you.
• Exclusive licences prevent the creator from licensing their work to anyone else.

Both restrict the ability of creators to use their own works. Neither is necessary. A non-exclusive licence should be all you need.  

Your agreement with third parties should aim to be equitable for everyone involved. An equitable agreement should use clear and fair terms for third party permissions or licences. The National Lottery Heritage Fund is happy to assist you in this process if you have questions.

What if I don’t know who to ask for consent?  

Sometimes it is not possible to locate the rights holder to get permission. We call works like these ‘orphan works’. Legal exceptions may allow you to use, incorporate or share these materials. Learn more about orphan works at Copyright Cortex, Copyright User and on the UK Intellectual Property Office website.  

As an example, the National Galleries Scotland’s Orphan Works and Take Down policy lists all the authors of orphan works alongside instructions to make a ‘take down’ request. This approach respects the intellectual property rights that exist in the works and enables anyone to come forward with information to help locate the rights holder.

Stage four: During your project

With any project, plans sometimes change. Third parties can change their mind on how their materials should be used. Design your project in a way that allows third parties to withdraw participation. This is compliant with data protection law. Learn more about data protection and privacy in our digital guide to online privacy and security.

In addition, you might select a new format or platform for the project materials. Re-contact third parties to inform them of these changes and reach new agreements, if necessary.  

Stage five: Applying the license or tool

At this stage, you should apply the license or tool to your project materials. This means marking your project outputs similar to the various examples throughout this guide.  

Clearly communicate the license or public domain dedication when making your materials publicly available. You can do this by including the license or public domain dedication immediately after the citation along with a link to the terms of reuse. Include the button or icon when possible. Creative Commons also has guidance on how to give attribution.

For example, this guide is licensed CC BY 4.0. This is communicated as:  

‘Working with open licenses: a guide for projects’, Andrea Wallace and Mathilde Pavis (2021), supported by The National Lottery Heritage Fund, CC BY 4.0.  

The best place to communicate this information is near the work or in another obvious location. For example, with:

• works published online, immediately beside the work
• publications like a book, on the title page
• audiovisual material, in the credits of the film, video or sound recording
• slide deck, on the introductory slide or at the end with other credits
• Word document or pdf, in the introductory information or at the end with other credits
• website, in the footer and the terms of use  

You should also embed this information and/or URI link in the metadata. Common fields for rights information include dc:rights or edm:rights.  

Marking your project materials

For materials you create and hold rights in, you have two options. You can use either the CC BY 4.0 licence or the CC0 1.0 tool. The terms for each option are included below for reference. The next section contains examples of their use by UK organisations.  

CC BY 4.0

With the CC BY 4.0 licence, the public is free to:  

• Share – copy and redistribute the material in any medium or format.
• Adapt – remix, transform and build upon the material for any purpose, even commercially.

Under the following terms:

• Attribution – users must give appropriate credit, provide a link to the licence, and indicate if changes were made in a reasonable manner, but not in any way that suggests you endorse the user or use.

Left: CC BY 4.0 button. Right: CC BY icon.

CC0 1.0

With the CC0 1.0 tool, the public can:

• freely build upon, enhance, distribute and reuse the material
• for any purposes
• without restriction under copyright or database law

You must apply the CC0 1.0 tool to following categories of outputs:  

• any code and metadata created during the course of the project
• media generated during the reproduction of public domain works, such as photographs, digital surrogates and 3D scans

Left: Creative Commons Public Domain Declaration (CC0) button. Right: CC0 icon

The next section includes examples of licences, tools and citations in practice by UK organisations.  

Marking restricted materials  

Not everything in your project will be subject to the open licensing requirement. You should communicate to the public which materials are not available for public reuse.

Using other labels to mark restricted materials

We recommend you use the RightsStatements.org labels to mark materials restricted by rights.

RightsStatements.org is an organisation that has designed 12 standardised labels that can be used when CC tools and licences cannot be applied. For example, these labels can be used to mark in-copyright works, orphan works or sensitive materials in which other restrictions may apply.

For in-copyright works, the appropriate label is In Copyright accompanied by, for example, '© The National Lottery Heritage Fund'.

For orphan works, the appropriate label is Unknown Rightsholder with accompanying text 'All rights reserved'.

For sensitive materials appropriate for online access, the appropriate label is Other Legal Restrictions with accompany text 'Permissions apply'.

How do I communicate what materials are restricted in my project?

For outputs that incorporate multiple materials with different rights statements, you should display the individual rights statements next to each work.  

You can do this using text like ‘All rights reserved’ or by attributing the rights holder near the work with the copyright symbol. This communicates to the public that the work is in copyright.  

The Getty Institute provides examples on how to best do this. You can see how the Institute applies this in practice in the publications on their virtual library and in the illustration below.

Credit: Andrea Wallace, CC0 1.0