Quote from UK Legislation in a book

[megahertz]

Hi there,

I can't see that this has been asked before, but could really do with some help. I am in the early stages of a book on electrical safety, and obviously the legal requirements play a big part. I would like to refer to various pieces of UK legislation, and also quote small parts of it.

Does anybody know if this is acceptable?

An example might be :-

The Electricity at Work Regulations 1989 state:
‘It shall be the duty of every employer and self-employed person to comply with the provisions of the regulations in so far as they relate to matters within his control.’(Regulation 3)

With a discussion of the above following.

Is this a breach of copyright, or is it acceptable to quote from laws in a book relevant to them?

Thanks in advance!

Tim

[AndyJ]

Hi Tim,
Legislation generally, and in particular any Regulations such as the one you quote, are released under the Open Govenrment Licence v2.0, the terms and conditions for which are:

You are encouraged to use and re-use the Information that is available under this licence freely and flexibly, with only a few conditions.

Using Information under this licence

Use of copyright and database right material expressly made available under this licence (the ‘Information’) indicates your acceptance of the terms and conditions below.

The Licensor grants you a worldwide, royalty-free, perpetual, non-exclusive licence to use the Information subject to the conditions below.

This licence does not affect your freedom under fair dealing or fair use or any other copyright or database right exceptions and limitations.
You are free to:

• copy, publish, distribute and transmit the Information;
  adapt the Information;
  exploit the Information commercially and non-commercially for example, by combining it with other Information, or by including it in your own product or application.

You must, where you do any of the above:

• acknowledge the source of the Information by including any attribution statement specified by the Information Provider(s) and, where possible, provide a link to this licence;
  
  If the Information Provider does not provide a specific attribution statement, or if you are using Information from several Information Providers and multiple attributions are not practical in your product or application, you may use the following:
  
  • Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v2.0.

These are important conditions of this licence and if you fail to comply with them the rights granted to you under this licence, or any similar licence granted by the Licensor, will end automatically.

So as you can see there is no problem with you quoting as much as you like so long as you attach a suitable attribution. The link to the National Archives site (on behalf of the Controller of Her Majesty's Stationery Office) is http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/doc/open-government-licence/version/2/.

[megahertz]

That's excellent. Thanks for taking the time to reply!

Tim