• CLA is regulated by the government as the collective licensing body for the reuse of text and images from books, journals and magazines.
  • CLA is a not-for-profit company. We distribute our revenues back into the creative industries helping to ensure that rightsholders are fairly remunerated when their works are used.

Our Public Sector Copyright Licence solutions are a must-have for any public sector employee who needs to make copies from the print or online publications represented by CLA. With copying licences that cover over 16 million publications, including professional and trade magazines, scientific and medical journals, technical reports, consumer data, business books, and websites, we make it easy for you to access, reuse, and share content while complying with copyright law.

Benefits of the CLA Public Sector Licences

These benefits apply across the public sector licences:

  1. Mitigates risk from staff inadvertently infringing copyright law within extent limits
  2. Covers reuse of owned published content for all staff across the public sector organisation
  3. Enables staff to access copies of content as a collaboration partner on projects or programmes
  4. Access to digital tools, extending the value of the licence

How we support your area

NHS

Central Government

Local Authorities

Public Libraries

Public Bodies

Supporting tools

CLA Check Permissions Tool
Check Permissions works for all, even if you don’t have a licence. Use it to check whether an article, book or website is covered by the CLA licence
View More

Useful links

Licence documents

Features articles

Find out what's new and noteworthy in CLA's news and articles section

Gov.uk

Find out what the official UK government website has to say about the Copyright Licensing Agency (CLA)

Keep up to date

Sign up for one of the CLA newsletters to keep up to date with the latest news and developments in your sector or across CLA

What our clients say about us

As a long-term user of the CLA Licence, I can confidently say that it has provided Tandridge District Council with a sense of security when it comes to copying published materials. Knowing that we are covered under the licence has given us peace of mind in our day-to-day work. Before obtaining the CLA Licence, we understood the importance of complying with copyright laws, particularly as a public body, and the licence has allowed us to do so with ease.

In our line of work, copies are necessary for certain business areas, and having the licence has made this process simpler. It has also helped us develop our ideas and discussions, as we are able to share published information as part of our day to day work.

Working with the CLA has been a positive experience. Everyone we have dealt with has been friendly, professional, and responsive. Any queries we have had were promptly answered, and the process of renewal and the previous audit were well managed and easy to follow.

For any organisation considering copyright licence coverage, I would strongly suggest getting in touch with the CLA to discuss your requirements. It is worth considering having a licence to ensure you comply with the law and set a good example. Overall, our experience with the CLA Licence has been extremely positive and we would highly recommend it to other organisations.

Tandridge District Council
Giuseppina Valenza
Head of Policy and Communications - Tandridge District Council

As a long-term user of the CLA Licence, I can confidently say that it has provided Tandridge District Council with a sense of security when it comes to copying published materials. Knowing that we are covered under the licence has given us peace of mind in our day-to-day work. Before obtaining the CLA Licence, we understood the importance of complying with copyright laws, particularly as a public body, and the licence has allowed us to do so with ease.

In our line of work, copies are necessary for certain business areas, and having the licence has made this process simpler. It has also helped us develop our ideas and discussions, as we are able to share published information as part of our day to day work.

Working with the CLA has been a positive experience. Everyone we have dealt with has been friendly, professional, and responsive. Any queries we have had were promptly answered, and the process of renewal and the previous audit were well managed and easy to follow.

For any organisation considering copyright licence coverage, I would strongly suggest getting in touch with the CLA to discuss your requirements. It is worth considering having a licence to ensure you comply with the law and set a good example. Overall, our experience with the CLA Licence has been extremely positive and we would highly recommend it to other organisations.

Tandridge District Council
Giuseppina Valenza
Head of Policy and Communications - Tandridge District Council

As a long-term user of the CLA Licence, I can confidently say that it has provided Tandridge District Council with a sense of security when it comes to copying published materials. Knowing that we are covered under the licence has given us peace of mind in our day-to-day work. Before obtaining the CLA Licence, we understood the importance of complying with copyright laws, particularly as a public body, and the licence has allowed us to do so with ease.

In our line of work, copies are necessary for certain business areas, and having the licence has made this process simpler. It has also helped us develop our ideas and discussions, as we are able to share published information as part of our day to day work.

Working with the CLA has been a positive experience. Everyone we have dealt with has been friendly, professional, and responsive. Any queries we have had were promptly answered, and the process of renewal and the previous audit were well managed and easy to follow.

For any organisation considering copyright licence coverage, I would strongly suggest getting in touch with the CLA to discuss your requirements. It is worth considering having a licence to ensure you comply with the law and set a good example. Overall, our experience with the CLA Licence has been extremely positive and we would highly recommend it to other organisations.

Tandridge District Council
Giuseppina Valenza
Head of Policy and Communications - Tandridge District Council

As a long-term user of the CLA Licence, I can confidently say that it has provided Tandridge District Council with a sense of security when it comes to copying published materials. Knowing that we are covered under the licence has given us peace of mind in our day-to-day work. Before obtaining the CLA Licence, we understood the importance of complying with copyright laws, particularly as a public body, and the licence has allowed us to do so with ease.

In our line of work, copies are necessary for certain business areas, and having the licence has made this process simpler. It has also helped us develop our ideas and discussions, as we are able to share published information as part of our day to day work.

Working with the CLA has been a positive experience. Everyone we have dealt with has been friendly, professional, and responsive. Any queries we have had were promptly answered, and the process of renewal and the previous audit were well managed and easy to follow.

For any organisation considering copyright licence coverage, I would strongly suggest getting in touch with the CLA to discuss your requirements. It is worth considering having a licence to ensure you comply with the law and set a good example. Overall, our experience with the CLA Licence has been extremely positive and we would highly recommend it to other organisations.

Tandridge District Council
Giuseppina Valenza
Head of Policy and Communications - Tandridge District Council

Your questions answered

Our answers to your most frequently asked questions. Discover more about CLA Licences and protecting your organisation from copyright infringement.
Our business and public administration licences allow unlimited storage on a company intranet provided that the publisher is signed up to our licensing scheme and the publication is covered. To see if a publication is covered under the licence please use the Check Permissions search tool on our website. If the publication is not covered by your licence then you would need to seek clearance from the publisher directly.
You can make copies when you have one of our licences.
Many major magazine titles can be copied under our licences – further information about reusing this kind of content here. Some magazines are licensed by NLA Media Access. You can see if you are covered to copy from any magazine by using our Check Permissions search tool. Permission to copy content from national or regional newspapers is granted by NLA Media Access.
You will need to get permission from the map publisher. Standard licences are available from most major map publishing companies such as Street Map and the Ordnance Survey.
If you are a PR firm, marketing agency or similar and you want to provide copies of news and current affairs articles externally to clients, you need CLA’s Media Consultancy Licence. Providing electronic or hard copies of articles or links by email is not permitted under the standard CLA Business Licence; without the Media Consultancy Licence or direct permission from the rightsholder, your firm could be exposed to the risk of copyright infringement. This includes forwarding clippings and web links received via Media Monitoring Organisations to your clients.