Copyright & licensing of content & code

We have spent decades building our unique offer to the world, and we have zero tolerance of plagiarism or IP theft. The graphic and textual elements as well as the coding and expert views and organisational elements of this web site (hereafter "content") are our Intellectual Property ("IP") which is all protected by copyright. Any unauthorised use or replication without written permission will be considered an infringement of that copyright and deemed the legal acceptance of our default licensing terms. This includes indirect use by human or automated agents such as AI bots that reformat or source data from our IP.

Note that we make regular backups that identify our content's originality and existence in time. We also seed data that can be used by forensic editors to establish copying to legally evidential standards.

This restriction applies to the content of all web pages and facilities found under any Scotweb site’s top level domain or satellite sites, including but not limited to CLAN.com and DCDALGLIESH.CO.UK. This includes any pages not directly accessed from the main page or index pages.

We reserve all rights to all our content and original technologies and will seek legal redress and damages from anyone found to be infringing our exclusive IP rights. However, we may allow limited use of our content if prior written permission is obtained from us, on condition this is credited to us with an obvious direct link to its source that allows full user and search engine following.

Default licensing terms

Otherwise, all our original content is available to third parties for re-publication on a licensed basis without prior approval. Unless otherwise negotiated, this will be retrospectively charged at a rate of £1 (One Pound Sterling) per word of text or image or reference or organisational element, per hard copy published or per online page impression. Use of any element of our work in any form without our prior written consent will be deemed legal acceptance of these licensing conditions. We reserve the right to reclaim any payments due through legal action, based on our reasonable estimates of circulation where no firm evidence is made available to us, with no time limit and no maximum fee.

In the case of computer code, any unauthorised use or re-transmission of our original work or technology, on or via any web site or medium other than our own, will also be deemed to be legal acceptance of our default licensing terms. In the case of code, these are based on a fee of £10 (Ten Pounds Sterling) per usage instance (e.g. user session) that directly or indirectly uses our technology or original work or any part thereof which by your actions you effect or encourage or enable to be effected by third parties without our written permission.

As part of this legal contract established by any such unauthorised usage, you further agree to deliver to us within seven days, on demand, all available relevant server statistics or other relevant evidence in unedited form to enable the calculation of such fees, which will be paid to us in full within one calendar week of the end of each month for the duration of such use. In the event of your failure to deliver such information in a reliable and credible and auditable and verifiable format, we reserve the right to make our own estimates based on third party comparisons and sources, and to charge you fees for your usage which will be legally enforceable.

By using this site you are deemed to be aware of and accepting these terms, which are accessible from a copyright warning on every page of our site, and that you agree that any action concerning this contract will be held under Scottish law.

If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact our customer services.