The municipal copying agreement does not cover copying in wellbeing services counties, federations of municipalities, joint municipal authorities or separate companies or other legal entities with which the municipality is associated or to which it has outsourced its services or activities. They must obtain our copying licence separately. Joint municipal authorities and companies can easily purchase a licence from our licence store.
Early childhood education and teaching activities are subject to different licence arrangements. However, a municipality’s copying licence covers open early childhood education and care organised by the municipality.
What am I allowed to copy?
Our copying licence enables
- copying and scanning articles from newspapers and magazines and excerpts from books, reports and other printed publications
- copying and scanning sheet music and song lyrics
- copying and printing images and text from the internet
- distributing copies as paper copies or printouts and by email to your organisation’s staff
- creating summaries of newspaper and magazine articles and sharing them within your organisation in digital form
- attaching images, articles and other text excerpts to internal memos or similar internal presentations to be presented or shared within the organisation
- storing the copies in a closed internal network of your organisation, such as your intranet, so that they can be only accessed by the staff of your organisation for a period of one year, as well as
- copying and printing an article or extract from a book, other publication or website and providing it as a paper copy to a patient or other customer, with the exception of customers of library services, who are subject to different licence arrangements.
The copies can be used for internal administrative purposes within your organisation, such as internal communications, research and planning and training organised for the organisation’s staff.
Our licence does not cover training, consultation or other activities organised for persons other than the licensee’s staff.
NOTE! Our licence does not allow for the distribution or publishing of the copies or works on the internet or social media, such as websites or online services of the municipality, or the use of them in other publishing activities.
Our copying licence enables
| Text and images | Sheet music and song lyrics | |
| Photocopying | 20 pages per publication; a maximum of half of the publication | 10 pages per publication, no more than half of the publication |
| Scanning |
20 pages per publication; a maximum of half of the publication an entire article from a newspaper or magazine |
10 pages per publication, no more than half of the publication |
| Printing out | 20 pages per digital source | 10 pages per publication, no more than half of the publication |
| Copying and saving legally and freely available online material | 20 images or as printed A4-sized pages per website | 10 pages per publication, no more than half of the publication |
A maximum of 10% of the total page number or 20 pages of an SFS standard can be copied. However, individual components of a standard, such as a key image, table or another similar element, cannot be copied alone. Standards in electronic format can be copied and printed according to their individual licence terms.
Copying sheet music and song lyrics
Our copying licence also enables copying sheet music and song lyrics for the purpose of internal use within an organisation, up to a maximum of 10 pages per publication, but no more than a half of the publication. Copying choir, band and orchestral sheet music is not permitted at all with our licence. The copies can be used for an event organised by the municipality on its own premises with free admission, or as part of club, workshop or similar small-scale activities organised by the municipality. Copies of sheet music cannot be used in other public performances or in preparing for such performances.
With this licence, it is also permitted to compile a songbook for distribution to the participants for musical works to be performed at an event. A maximum of 50 copies of a songbook may be made for the same event. The copies must mention that they were made under Kopiosto’s copying licence. The licensee must report the content of the songbooks by providing the names of the musical works and the information on their authors and publishers or a copy of the songbook by email to raportointi@kopiosto.fi.
Do you want to copy more?
If you want to use or copy material more extensively or in a way that our copying licence does not allow, you can request authorisation directly from the author or publisher.
- digital standards
- works from digital services covered by a separate agreement or licence, such as the SFS Online or Rakennustieto digital services
- databases, computer software and games
- workbooks, exercise books and answer keys,
- audio or audiovisual works, performances of written or musical works or the recordings thereof, such as audiobooks and music recordings
- any online material that requires acquiring a separate licence or registration, such as online newspapers behind a paywall or RT files, standards, sheet music or learning materials in digital format, or material that is subject to a separate licence, such as the Creative Commons licence
- material that the author, publisher or other copyright holder has prohibited from being used and copied under Kopiosto’s licence (list of works and copyright holders)
In addition to the aforementioned, the digital copying licence does not apply to
- catalogues
- research reports and other surveys
- scripts of plays
- foreign comics.
Our licence does not apply to the production of copies for the purposes of publishing activities, distributing copies outside an organisation or sharing and communicating copies on social media or the open internet.
Further details on the terms of copying can be found in the licence terms at the bottom of the page.
Our copying licence enables creating compilations of several articles for the purposes of your organisation’s internal communications and use. You may copy or scan several articles from a single newspaper or magazine, but not more than half of the published content.
You can distribute article compilations to the staff of your organisation by email or by saving them in a closed internal network.
Submit a report of digital article compilations created with our licence by sending one copy by email to raportointi(at)kopiosto.fi.
Remember to provide the source and the author
When you copy or use works, remember to include the names of the author and the work according to accepted principles of morality.
Municipal administration
Copying remunerations per resident in 2025
| Copying remunerations per resident | |
| Municipal administration | €0.105 + VAT |