AustLII [Home] [Databases] [Search] [WorldLII] [Feedback] [Help] Related Links

AustLII Usage Policy

* Other Policies
* FAQ: Please remove my case
* Disclaimers

You are here: AustLII >> About AustLII >> AustLII Usage Policy

Policy on use of documents located on AustLII
(‘AustLII Usage Policy’)

1. General principles

(a) AustLII 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.

(b) In order to provide this service, AustLII 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.

(c) AustLII is not a data repository, in that it does not provide a service for other publishers to obtain documents from AustLII for republication. Other publishers need to obtain those documents from their original sources or by other appropriate and authorised means.

(d) In relation to all documents that it republishes, AustLII 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 AustLII, whether or not developed by AustLII.

(e) AustLII places particular restrictions upon the ways in which case-law documents on AustLII can be copied and used. AustLII specifically blocks all spiders and other automated agents from accessing its case-law via the Robots Exclusion Standard. AustLII’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 AustLII.

2. End Use

(a) Individual end-users of the AustLII system are free to access, copy and print materials for their own use in accordance with copyright law;

(b) In relation to case law, this is subject to (1)(e) above.

3. Copyright in content on AustLII

(a) AustLII is not the copyright owner in the source documents published on AustLII and is not able to give permission for reproduction of those source documents.

(b) AustLII claims copyright in all value-added content that it adds to source documents (including hypertext mark-up, and alternative citations). On request, AustLII usually gives permission for reproduction of examples of this content for teaching, training or similar purposes.

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

(a) AustLII 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.

(b) AustLII does in some cases negotiate agreements with other publishers for them to frame AustLII pages as part of their services, including assisting them to identify the correct pages on AustLII to which to link.

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

(a) AustLII 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.

(b) AustLII will assist Courts or other providers of public legal information in relation to(a)(ii) above if such assistance is requested.

(c) 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.

(d) AustLII 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 AustLII's discretion.

AustLII Co-Directors

30 October 2010


AustLII: Copyright Policy | Privacy Policy | Disclaimers | Feedback
URL: http://www.austlii.edu.au/austlii/copyright.html