Licensing Information
What's Licensing all about?
CLASS’s core business is copyright licensing. We act as the conduit between members who are owners of copyright works and users of copyright materials.
As a government regulated, not-for-profit organisation, we help our members and the members of our partner foreign reproduction rights organisations (RROs) obtain equitable remuneration for the use of their works, even whilst we serve the needs of educators, students, company employees and other users, by facilitating these users’ use of copyright works for analysis, education, research, training, and operational purposes.
The licence schemes operated by CLASS fall in two broad categories:
- A licence scheme for all educational institutions
- A licence scheme for all corporate businesses and organisations
The standard terms of a CLASS licence include:
- The requirement for the licensee to pay licence fees, which may be determined based on criteria such as the nature of the business. A limited licence for the licensee to copy and communicate to its employees and/or students.
- A requirement for the licensee to keep partial records (for a period of 60 days per academic or financial year) of the use of the licensed material.
The tariffs collected by CLASS are then distributed to our members and partner RROs in our annual royalties distribution exercise, in accordance with the CLASS Distribution Policy.
Who should be licensed?
Users of copyrighted works – for instance, extracting content from books, print and online news articles/magazines or downloaded resources by way of photocopying, scanning, compiling and other forms of reproduction – are required by law to obtain permission from the associated rights-holders before proceeding.
Failure to comply constitutes an offence under the Copyright Act. However, procuring a copyright licence from CLASS will allow you or your institution/organisation to copy works legally within the limits as stipulated in the CLASS Licence.
To find out more about how you can go about procuring a licence, please contact CLASS at info@class-singapore.com
What materials are covered under a CLASS license?
CLASS licenses works belonging to CLASS members, and the members of foreign reproduction rights organisations (RROs) which have entered into reciprocal licensing agreements with CLASS.
Click here for the full list of CLASS members, and here for the full list of CLASS’s partner foreign RROs.
For a list of excluded materials not under the CLASS licence agreement, please click here.
For further information of the works licensed by CLASS, including: (a) confirmation that a particular work is or is not part of CLASS’s portfolio; or (b) proof that a particular work is part of CLASS’s portfolio, please e-mail us at info@class-singapore.com and we will respond to you within 7 days of receiving your query.
CLASS Tariff Rates
CLASS determines tariff rates based on the nature and type of industry to which the organisation belongs. Such a structured approach allows CLASS to calculate appropriate tariff rates that are commensurable with all businesses.
For more information on CLASS’s tariff rates, please email us at info@class-singapore.com.
As a government-regulated copyright body in Singapore, CLASS’s support and assistance is also available under the Go Business IP Grow platform for IP solutions and compliance needs.
