
CHAPTER I
Article 1 

1. This Directive establishes a minimum set of rules governing the re-use and the practical means of facilitating re-use of existing documents held by public sector bodies of the Member States.
2. This Directive shall not apply to:
(a) documents the supply of which is an activity falling outside the scope of the public task of the public sector bodies concerned as defined by law or by other binding rules in the Member State, or in the absence of such rules, as defined in line with common administrative practice in the Member State in question, provided that the scope of the public tasks is transparent and subject to review;
(b) documents for which third parties hold intellectual property rights;
(c) documents which are excluded from access by virtue of the access regimes in the Member States, including on the grounds of:
— the protection of national security (i.e. State security), defence, or public security,
— statistical confidentiality,
— commercial confidentiality (e.g. business, professional or company secrets);
(ca) documents access to which is restricted by virtue of the access regimes in the Member States, including cases whereby citizens or companies have to prove a particular interest to obtain access to documents;
(cb) parts of documents containing only logos, crests and insignia;
(cc) documents access to which is excluded or restricted by virtue of the access regimes on the grounds of protection of personal data, and parts of documents accessible by virtue of those regimes which contain personal data the re-use of which has been defined by law as being incompatible with the law concerning the protection of individuals with regard to the processing of personal data;
(d) documents held by public service broadcasters and their subsidiaries, and by other bodies or their subsidiaries for the fulfilment of a public service broadcasting remit;
(e) documents held by educational and research establishments, including organisations established for the transfer of research results, schools and universities, except university libraries and
(f) documents held by cultural establishments other than libraries, museums and archives.
3. This Directive builds on and is without prejudice to access regimes in the Member States.
4. This Directive leaves intact and in no way affects the level of protection of individuals with regard to the processing of personal data under the provisions of Union and national law, and in particular does not alter the obligations and rights set out in Directive 95/46/EC.
5. The obligations imposed by this Directive shall apply only insofar as they are compatible with the provisions of international agreements on the protection of intellectual property rights, in particular the Berne Convention and the TRIPS Agreement.
Article 2 
For the purpose of this Directive the following definitions shall apply:

1.. ‘public sector body’ means the State, regional or local authorities, bodies governed by public law and associations formed by one or several such authorities or one or several such bodies governed by public law;
2.. ‘body governed by public law’ means any body:

((a)) established for the specific purpose of meeting needs in the general interest, not having an industrial or commercial character; and
((b)) having legal personality; and
((c)) financed, for the most part by the State, or regional or local authorities, or other bodies governed by public law; or subject to management supervision by those bodies; or having an administrative, managerial or supervisory board, more than half of whose members are appointed by the State, regional or local authorities or by other bodies governed by public law;
3.. ‘document’ means:

((a)) any content whatever its medium (written on paper or stored in electronic form or as a sound, visual or audiovisual recording);
((b)) any part of such content;
4.. ‘re-use’ means the use by persons or legal entities of documents held by public sector bodies, for commercial or non-commercial purposes other than the initial purpose within the public task for which the documents were produced. Exchange of documents between public sector bodies purely in pursuit of their public tasks does not constitute re-use;
5.. ‘personal data’ means data as defined in Article 2(a) of Directive 95/46/EC.
6.. ‘machine-readable format’ means a file format structured so that software applications can easily identify, recognize and extract specific data, including individual statements of fact, and their internal structure;
7.. ‘open format’ means a file format that is platform-independent and made available to the public without any restriction that impedes the re-use of documents;
8.. ‘formal open standard’ means a standard which has been laid down in written form, detailing specifications for the requirements on how to ensure software interoperability;
9.. ‘university’ means any public sector body that provides post-secondary-school higher education leading to academic degrees.
Article 3 

1. Subject to paragraph 2 Member States shall ensure that documents to which this Directive applies in accordance with Article 1 shall be re-usable for commercial or non-commercial purposes in accordance with the conditions set out in Chapters III and IV.
2. For documents in which libraries, including university libraries, museums and archives hold intellectual property rights, Member States shall ensure that, where the re-use of such documents is allowed, these documents shall be re-usable for commercial or non-commercial purposes in accordance with the conditions set out in Chapters III and IV.
CHAPTER II
Article 4 

1. Public sector bodies shall, through electronic means where possible and appropriate, process requests for re-use and shall make the document available for re-use to the applicant or, if a licence is needed, finalise the licence offer to the applicant within a reasonable time that is consistent with the time-frames laid down for the processing of requests for access to documents.
2. Where no time limits or other rules regulating the timely provision of documents have been established, public sector bodies shall process the request and shall deliver the documents for re-use to the applicant or, if a licence is needed, finalise the licence offer to the applicant within a timeframe of not more than 20 working days after its receipt. This timeframe may be extended by another 20 working days for extensive or complex requests. In such cases the applicant shall be notified within three weeks after the initial request that more time is needed to process it.
3. In the event of a negative decision, the public sector bodies shall communicate the grounds for refusal to the applicant on the basis of the relevant provisions of the access regime in that Member State or of the national provisions adopted pursuant to this Directive, in particular points (a) to (cc) of Article 1(2) or Article 3. Where a negative decision is based on Article 1(2)(b), the public sector body shall include a reference to the natural or legal person who is the rightholder, where known, or alternatively to the licensor from which the public sector body has obtained the relevant material. Libraries, including university libraries, museums and archives shall not be required to include such a reference.
4. Any decision on re-use shall contain a reference to the means of redress in case the applicant wishes to appeal the decision. The means of redress shall include the possibility of review by an impartial review body with the appropriate expertise, such as the national competition authority, the national access to documents authority or a national judicial authority, whose decisions are binding upon the public sector body concerned.
5. Public sector bodies covered under Article 1(2)(d), (e) and (f) shall not be required to comply with the requirements of this Article.
CHAPTER III
Article 5 

1. Public sector bodies shall make their documents available in any pre-existing format or language, and, where possible and appropriate, in open and machine-readable format together with their metadata. Both the format and the metadata should, in so far as possible, comply with formal open standards.
2. Paragraph 1 shall not imply an obligation for public sector bodies to create or adapt documents or provide extracts in order to comply with that paragraph where this would involve disproportionate effort, going beyond a simple operation.
3. On the basis of this Directive, public sector bodies cannot be required to continue the production and storage of a certain type of documents with a view to the re-use of such documents by a private or public sector organisation.
Article 6 

1. Where charges are made for the re-use of documents, those charges shall be limited to the marginal costs incurred for their reproduction, provision and dissemination.
2. Paragraph 1 shall not apply to the following:
(a) public sector bodies that are required to generate revenue to cover a substantial part of their costs relating to the performance of their public tasks;
(b) by way of exception, documents for which the public sector body concerned is required to generate sufficient revenue to cover a substantial part of the costs relating to their collection, production, reproduction and dissemination. Those requirements shall be defined by law or by other binding rules in the Member State. In the absence of such rules, the requirements shall be defined in accordance with common administrative practice in the Member State;
(c) libraries, including university libraries, museums and archives.
3. In the cases referred to in points (a) and (b) of paragraph 2, the public sector bodies concerned shall calculate the total charges according to objective, transparent and verifiable criteria to be laid down by the Member States. The total income of those bodies from supplying and allowing re-use of documents over the appropriate accounting period shall not exceed the cost of collection, production, reproduction and dissemination, together with a reasonable return on investment. Charges shall be calculated in line with the accounting principles applicable to the public sector bodies involved.
4. Where charges are made by the public sector bodies referred to in point (c) of paragraph 2, the total income from supplying and allowing re-use of documents over the appropriate accounting period shall not exceed the cost of collection, production, reproduction, dissemination, preservation and rights clearance, together with a reasonable return on investment. Charges shall be calculated in line with the accounting principles applicable to the public sector bodies involved.
Article 7 

1. In the case of standard charges for the re-use of documents held by public sector bodies, any applicable conditions and the actual amount of those charges, including the calculation basis for such charges, shall be pre-established and published, through electronic means where possible and appropriate.
2. In the case of charges for the re-use other than those referred to in paragraph 1, the public sector body in question shall indicate at the outset which factors are taken into account in the calculation of those charges. Upon request, the public sector body in question shall also indicate the way in which such charges have been calculated in relation to the specific re-use request.
3. The requirements referred to in point (b) of Article 6(2) shall be pre-established. They shall be published by electronic means, where possible and appropriate.
4. Public sector bodies shall ensure that applicants for re-use of documents are informed of available means of redress relating to decisions or practices affecting them.
Article 8 

1. Public sector bodies may allow re-use without conditions or may impose conditions, where appropriate through a licence. These conditions shall not unnecessarily restrict possibilities for re-use and shall not be used to restrict competition.
2. In Member States where licences are used, Member States shall ensure that standard licences for the re-use of public sector documents, which can be adapted to meet particular licence applications, are available in digital format and can be processed electronically. Member States shall encourage all public sector bodies to use the standard licences.
Article 9 
Member States shall make practical arrangements facilitating the search for documents available for re-use, such as asset lists of main documents with relevant metadata, accessible where possible and appropriate online and in machine-readable format, and portal sites that are linked to the asset lists. Where possible Member States shall facilitate the cross-linguistic search for documents.
CHAPTER IV
Article 10 

1. Any applicable conditions for the re-use of documents shall be non-discriminatory for comparable categories of re-use.
2. If documents are re-used by a public sector body as input for its commercial activities which fall outside the scope of its public tasks, the same charges and other conditions shall apply to the supply of the documents for those activities as apply to other users.
Article 11 

1. The re-use of documents shall be open to all potential actors in the market, even if one or more market players already exploit added-value products based on these documents. Contracts or other arrangements between the public sector bodies holding the documents and third parties shall not grant exclusive rights.
2. However, where an exclusive right is necessary for the provision of a service in the public interest, the validity of the reason for granting such an exclusive right shall be subject to regular review, and shall, in any event, be reviewed every three years. The exclusive arrangements established after the entry into force of this Directive shall be transparent and made public.This paragraph shall not apply to digitisation of cultural resources.
2a. Notwithstanding paragraph 1, where an exclusive right relates to digitisation of cultural resources, the period of exclusivity shall in general not exceed 10 years. In case where that period exceeds 10 years, its duration shall be subject to review during the 11th year and, if applicable, every seven years thereafter.The arrangements granting exclusive rights referred to in the first subparagraph shall be transparent and made public.In the case of an exclusive right referred to in the first subparagraph, the public sector body concerned shall be provided free of charge with a copy of the digitised cultural resources as part of those arrangements. That copy shall be available for re-use at the end of the period of exclusivity.
3. Exclusive arrangements existing on 1 July 2005 that do not qualify for the exceptions under paragraph 2 shall be terminated at the end of the contract or in any event not later than 31 December 2008.
4. Without prejudice to paragraph 3, exclusive arrangements existing on 17 July 2013 that do not qualify for the exceptions under paragraphs 2 and 2a shall be terminated at the end of the contract or in any event not later than 18 July 2043.
CHAPTER V
Article 12 
Member States shall bring into force the laws, regulations and administrative provisions necessary to comply with this Directive by 1 July 2005. They shall forthwith inform the Commission thereof.
When Member States adopt those measures, they shall contain a reference to this Directive or be accompanied by such a reference on the occasion of their official publication. Member States shall determine how such reference is to be made.
Article 13 

1. The Commission shall carry out a review of the application of this Directive before 18 July 2018 and shall communicate the results of that review, together with any proposals for amendments to this Directive, to the European Parliament and the Council.
2. Member States shall submit a report every 3 years to the Commission on the availability of public sector information for re-use and the conditions under which it is made available and the redress practices. On the basis of that report, which shall be made public, Member States shall carry out a review of the implementation of Article 6, in particular as regards charging above marginal cost.
3. The review referred to in paragraph 1 shall in particular address the scope and impact of this Directive, including the extent of the increase in re-use of public sector documents, the effects of the principles applied to charging and the re-use of official texts of a legislative and administrative nature, the interaction between data protection rules and re-use possibilities, as well as further possibilities of improving the proper functioning of the internal market and the development of the European content industry.
Article 14 
This Directive shall enter into force on the day of its publication in the Official Journal of the European Union.
Article 15 
This Directive is addressed to the Member States.