Companies House, SEC and EIF documents: checking research reuse terms

Companies House draws a distinction that matters when an investment team assembles a research packet: its own publications and documents filed by companies do not have the same stated copyright basis. Its guidance places the former under the Open Government Licence, subject to exceptions, while telling users of public-register material to obtain advice about possible third-party copyright.

Downloading a company’s accounts alongside Companies House guidance therefore leaves two different questions to record. Who created each document, and what supports the intended use? The SEC and European Investment Fund provide further concrete examples of why a public source URL is only part of that answer.

Companies House: identify the document’s creator#

Companies House’s copyright and reuse guidance separates material it produces from material on the public register. Its own material is covered by Crown copyright and made available under the Open Government Licence v3.0, except where otherwise stated. The guidance also specifies accurate reproduction, a non-misleading context and attribution for information taken from guidance, publications and statistical tables.

For public-register information, Companies House says it imposes no rules or requirements on use. That statement appears alongside its direction that customers, including bulk customers, take advice about possible third-party copyright. It is therefore an incomplete research record to describe every downloaded company document simply as “government-licensed.” The repository and the document’s creator belong in separate fields.

SEC: retain the distribution statement and its qualifications#

The SEC’s website policy, under Website Dissemination, says information presented on SEC.gov may be copied or further distributed without the SEC’s permission and asks users to consider appropriate citation. It also says not to use the SEC seal, other logos or artwork from the site, and sets restrictions on using its registered marks in business names, trademarks or domain names.

The same page separately governs collection. Its Internet Security Policy states an aggregate limit of no more than 10 requests per second, regardless of how many machines submit them, and disallows unclassified bots. Recording the distribution statement does not replace recording the collection conditions. Nor should a researcher turn this website statement into an assertion that every third-party work encountered through a filing is copyright-free.

EIF: use the linked framework, then check the particular document#

The EIF’s transparency page links its Transparency Policy. The linked text inspected for this article states that it replaces the preceding policy. That makes the live link and exact document edition material when an older policy also appears in search results.

Its disclosure framework combines a presumption of disclosure with exceptions protecting confidentiality, personal data, commercial interests and intellectual property. Those provisions concern whether information is disclosed. They do not supply a positive permission record for a team’s proposed redistribution of a particular fund document or reuse of a chart. The researcher should locate that document’s own notice or the relevant permission before marking that intended use as authorised.

Record the proposed use, not just the download#

For a packet containing accounts, regulatory filings and institutional reports, a compact reuse record should identify:

• The document, its creator, the repository and the version actually inspected.
• The relevant policy or document notice, its exact section and the date checked.
• The intended operation: internal storage, a short quotation, redistribution of the file or reuse of a visual.
• Any permission or attribution condition established for that operation, and what remains unresolved.

Altss’s Research Citation Standard addresses short attributed quotations and checking the source at the cited location. Its OSINT Verification Standard separately requires a recorded rights basis. The three policy examples make that record concrete: distinguish creator from repository, distribution terms from collection conditions, and disclosure from permission for the intended reuse.