Joint municipal authority

In what situations do I need a copying licence?

Many online materials and printed materials are protected by copyright law, so permission is required to copy, digitally share or save them. Joint municipal authorities need their own copying licence for their personnel, as the municipal copying licence agreement does not cover joint municipal authorities, associations of municipalities, municipally owned companies, or other companies and organisations in which the municipality is involved. You can request permission directly from the authors and publishers of the materials or procure a copying licence from Kopiosto.

A joint municipal authority’s copying licence allows for the legal use of materials internally in the following cases, for example:

• copying and scanning articles from newspapers and magazines, sheet music, song lyrics or excerpts from books, reports and other printed publications
• copying and printing images and text from the internet
• distributing copies in paper form or printouts and by email to your joint municipal authority’s staff
• creating summaries of newspaper and magazine articles and sharing them within your join municipal authority in digital form
• attaching images, articles and other text excerpts to a memo, presentation or similar internal document
• storing the copies in a closed internal network of your joint municipal authority, such as your Intranet, so that they can be accessed only by the staff of your organisation.

Acquiring a licence

You can conveniently purchase continuous or fixed-term licences through our licence store. The price of a licence is calculated according to the joint municipal authority’s number of employees. It is based on our surveys on the amount and content of copying.

The licence is always acquired for all employees of the joint municipal authority, meaning that each employee can copy the relevant materials within the limits of the licence terms. As regards joint municipal authorities for education, the number of employees does not include teaching staff, and the licence does not apply to copying and use of copies in teaching activities.

The licence period always changes every calendar year to the new year. You can manage your licence later by logging into the licence store with your credentials.

Updating a continuous licence

A licence that is valid until further notice must be updated between 1 November and 31 January, if

• the joint municipal authority’s size category changes (the categories are 1–10 employees or more than 10 employees),
• the licence has been acquired for a specific number of employees exceeding 10 people, and the number of employees in the company changes by more than 20 people from the previously reported number.

If the company’s size category does not change or changes by less than 20 employees, the licence will automatically continue as it is, covering the entire staff.