Copyright policy

This copyright policy sets out how users are permitted to use our content and also explains the types of use that require the purchase of additional licences. This policy forms part of our terms and conditions. Thank you for reading this policy, our ability to invest in high quality journalism depends on our users complying with it. We reserve the right to change our copyright policy from time to time by publishing an updated policy on FT.com, which shall become effective and replace any previous policy with effect from publication. This version of the copyright policy was published on 13 March 2014.

What is copyright?

Copyright law gives the copyright owner the exclusive right to control the use of copyright protected works. All of the material published on our website and other digital/wireless platforms is protected by copyright law and should only be used as set out in the “How may I use FT content?” section below. Use that is made without our permission may therefore infringe our copyright which can result in personal and corporate liability. Where we state below that something is not allowed or permitted, then to do so is a breach of our terms and conditions, i.e. is a breach of contract, and may also violate copyright law.

How may I use FT content?

You may do the following:

■ View our content for your personal use on any device that is compatible with FT.com (this might be your PC, laptop, smartphone, tablet or other mobile device) and store our content on that device for your personal use;

■ Print single copies of articles on paper for your personal use;

■ Share links to articles by using the article tools we make available at the foot of each article.

■ Share links to articles published at www.ft.com/presscuttings using our ‘Email article ’tool. You can also send full text articles to email addresses of individual (but not group email accounts). Recipients will need to have an active standard or premium subscription to receive full text articles – all other users will receive a link to articles.

■ Use spidering technology to search and link to FT.com, provided that you not infringe the restrictions on use below (see “What am I not permitted to do with FT content?”), in particular the restrictions on storing FT content in any database.

How may I republish or redistribute FT content?

Except as set out above, you may not copy FT content from FT.com or any third party source of FT content such as news aggregators and you may not republish or redistribute full text articles, for example by pasting them into emails or republishing them in any media, including websites, newsletters or intranets.

We recognise that users of the Internet want to share information with others. We therefore permit limited republishing and redistribution of FT content as set out below provided that this does not create a Substitute for FT’s own products or services. We define a Substitute as a product or service that reduces the need for users or other third parties to pay for FT content directly, or which creates revenue from the FT’s content to the detriment of FT’s own ability to generate revenues from that content.

As long as you do not create a Substitute, you may do the following:

■ Publish online, the original FT headline and a link to the article and the first 140 characters of an article (what we call teaser text);

■ Forward the original headlines, links and teaser text to other individuals;

■ Download our RSS feeds and view them for your personal use. We currently publish headlines and teaser text within our RSS feeds. You may also make an RSS feed available to third parties, users within an organisation you work for or users of a website that you publish, on condition that you:

  • only publish the feed for access via a web-based browser.
  • do not use or publish the feed as part of a paid for service or for other commercial gain.
  • publish the feed as it is made available on FT.com, so that you only include the headline and teaser content, and ensure that the headline links back to the full text article on FT.com.
  • attribute the feed to the FT as “© The Financial Times Limited [year]”.
  • do not archive the feed or any of its content.
  • comply with our guidelines on usage of FT logos.

Am I allowed to copy or summarise limited parts of FT full text content?

As specified above you may not republish or redistribute full text articles (unless you share articles published at www.ft.com/presscuttings using our ‘Email article’ tool. You can send full text articles to email addresses of individuals (but not group email accounts). Recipients will need to have an active standard or premium subscription to receive full text articles – all others will receive a link.

You may however republish or redistribute ”Summaries” of FT articles if you comply with the conditions set out below. “Summaries” can be either an “extract” or an “abstract”. By “extract” we mean 30 words copied verbatim from an FT article which are inserted into a longer original work . By “abstract” we mean a 30 word non-verbatim summary of the news or facts reported in an FT article which does not form part of a longer work and does not misrepresent the original FT article.

These are the conditions you must comply with in order to produce summaries:

- you source FT as the author of any article from which you have derived a summary by way of an attribution such as “[journalist name] at the Financial Times reported that”, with a hypertext link from the word “Financial Times” to the original story published on FT.com;

- in the case of abstracts, you make clear that the abstract has been produced by you by stating “this abstract from the Financial Times was produced by [name]”, with a hypertext link from the word “Financial Times” to the original story published on FT.com;

- you ensure that your summaries do not in whole or in part form a Substitute for FT’s own products and services (see above for how we define Substitute). The more summaries you create the greater the risk of substitution. No individual or organisation may create, republish or redistribute more than ten summaries in aggregate each day, each one sourced from a different FT article that is published on the same day you create the summary;

- you do not use or create summaries that promote or endorse any product or service; and

- if FT notifies you that it believes you are creating, republishing or redistributing summaries outside of these parameters, you shall immediately cease doing so and your rights to create summaries shall be regarded as having been withdrawn, unless/until FT reaches an agreement with you regarding your use of FT articles.

Please note that these rights do not extend to content, data or other material published by FT that we licence from third parties (including stock exchange or other index providers) which you may not republish or redistribute.

How am I allowed to link to FT content?

If you would like to link to FT.com, please read and comply with the following guidelines and all applicable laws. A site or service that links to FT.com:

  • may display an FT logo (view our brand guidelines) to indicate the source of the link, but must not otherwise use any FT trade marks without permission from FT;
  • must not remove, distort or otherwise alter the size or appearance of the FT logo;
  • may link to the homepage of FT.com, and, provided that you comply with this copyright policy, may also link to other pages of FT.com;
  • must not be a Substitute (as defined above);
  • must not in any way imply that FT is endorsing it or its products or services;
  • must not misrepresent its relationship with FT or present false information about FT;
  • must not be a site or service that infringes any intellectual property or other

right of any person or that otherwise does not comply with all relevant laws and regulations; and

• must not be a site or service that contains content that could be construed as distasteful or offensive.

What am I not permitted to do with FT content?

You cannot do anything other than make use of the content as set out above, unless you buy the appropriate licence, see below for details. By way of example only, this means that you cannot:

■ If you are a registered user or subscriber, share your user name and password (which includes PINs) with anyone else. A password is for one person’s use. Sharing a password means a copy of our content may subsequently be made by someone who is not authorised to do so. Password sharing is a breach of our terms and conditions and is likely to result in an infringement of copyright. We monitor usage to detect password sharing.

■ Copy, publish or redistribute full text articles, photographs, graphics, tables or images in any way (unless you share articles published at www.ft.com/presscuttings using our ‘Email article’ tool. You can send full text articles to email addresses of individuals (but not group email accounts)). Recipients will need to have an active standard or premium subscription to receive full text articles – all others will receive a link.

■ Create derivative works from our content, unless you are creating summaries as described above.

■ Photocopy or scan copies of articles.

■ Remove the copyright or or trade mark notice from any copies of FT content.

■ Create a database in electronic or structured manual from by systematically and/or regularly downloading, caching, printing and storing all or any FT content (by spidering or otherwise).

■ Frame, harvest or scrape FT content or otherwise access FT content for similar purposes.

■ Use or attempt to use FT content outside the parameters we set depending on what subscription you have.

Copyright Policy: Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

The following FAQ give further guidance on the Copyright Policy. They do not form part of our terms and conditions, but give explanations and examples of how our terms and conditions, including the Copyright Policy, work in practice.

I thought that as long as I linked back to your website or published an attribution, that there are no restrictions on how I can use your content?

This is not correct. Merely providing a link or an attribution is not a defence to copyright infringement.

Why does it matter if I copy FT content without permission?

Unauthorised copying is a way of avoiding paying for the value you are gaining by using the content. We make a significant investment in creating FT content to deliver value to you and to make a return on that investment. If we are unable to protect that investment by licensing our content and collecting revenue, then it threatens our ability to continue to create the content.

What about “fair dealing” or “fair use” – doesn’t that allow me to copy things for the purpose of reporting news or current events?

Copyright law does allow, to a limited extent, republication for certain limited purposes, including the reporting of news or current events. We recommend that you take independent legal advice on the exact meaning of these terms if you want to rely on them. Unless your use of our content is permitted by this Copyright Policy, it is likely that we regard it as “unfair” and a breach of our terms and conditions.

But I need to use FT.com to do my job and I already use it in the way you say I can’t. Do I have to stop?

Yes, you do. We would be delighted to talk to you or your company about purchasing the appropriate licence.

We provide licences for use by many people, including multi-platform licences to enable access to our content via a number of different platforms. See http://ftcorporate.ft.com/ for more details.

We also offer licensing options to suit a range of requirements, such as to permit the use or reproduction of our content in third party materials and databases. Please see http://syndication.ft.com.

It’s likely that both you and your company are legally responsible if you are using FT.com to do your job in a manner that we do not permit, so we encourage you to approach us to discuss a corporate licence and legitimize that use.

May I scrape FT.com and republish FT headlines as part of a commercial service?

Only if you purchase a licence from us to do so. We provide licences and feeds for organisations that wish to systematically republish our headlines as part of a commercial service. See http://syndication.ft.com for more details.

May I photocopy FT newspaper articles?

If you wish to photocopy FT newspaper articles for redistribution in hard copy then you will need a licence from The Newspaper Licensing Agency.

What will you do about possible past misuse if my organisation wants to buy a licence to cover future use?

If you voluntarily disclose misuse that no longer occurs and you engage meaningfully with us to formalise that usage within a reasonable timescale by acquiring the appropriate licence, then our sole objective will be to build a long-term commercial relationship. This will be at our normal rates and we will not seek compensation from you for past misuse. We will take a less lenient approach with individuals and organisations that we discover infringing our copyright, particularly if those organisations refuse to stop the infringing activity and/or refuse to engage with us.

Is all material published on FT.com protected by copyright?

Yes, it is, so is all of the content we publish in our newspaper, magazines, digital, mobile applications etc., and so is FT content published on third party platforms. Our content is also protected in other ways, for example, protected as a database by way of database rights.

Does that mean that FT owns all of the material?

We own most of it, and what we don’t own ourselves we ensure we obtain the appropriate rights, permissions or licences to re-use. If you believe that we are using your content without your consent, please email us at help@ft.com so we can investigate this.

I have some questions about your policy, who should I contact?

Please email us at help@ft.com.