General Library




Conditions of use

Any user with access to the Internet can access any public municipal document, published by public dissemination, and read it, download it, save it, print it, use it, reuse it, distribute it, and even make derivative works from it, providing they take the associated Creative Commons licence into account.

If you wish to know which Creative Commons licences are associated with the BCNROC repository's collections, please consult the Circular[Cat] on creation.

To find out how you can use each document, we recommend that when you access a document, you consult the “Conditions of use” metadata (specifying which rights have been assigned) and “Details of the terms and conditions” (where you will find the URL for consulting the web page that explains what these rights consist of).

Copyright and obtaining copies of images from BCNROC

Under the current legislation on intellectual property, if you wish to use the images, you must bear the following in mind:

  • Photos that are in the public domain are identified under a Creative Commons CC-PD (Public Domain) licence, are free of legal restrictions of use and can be re-used without the need for requesting authorisation from the author providing you acknowledge their authorship and respect the document's integrity.
  • Municipally authored photographs are generally offered without restrictions on their use. These photographs have a Creative Commons CC-BY licence. They are authorised by third-party re-use and even commercial use, providing their source and author are acknowledged. If you are interested, you can download them, re-use them and print them. If you need the images in a higher resolution, you can request them from the BCNROC's “Contact” section.
  • Where the author of the photographs is not Barcelona City Council, you will need to bear in mind:

    1. Where the author is another institution or independent photographer, the use of these images comes under the Creative Commons licence stated in each document, generally a CC-BY-Non-commercial-No Derivative Works (CC-BY-NC-ND) licence or a CC-BY-Non-Commercial Share-Alike (CC-BY-NC-SA) licence. In the case of a CC-BY-NC-ND licence, you can use the image without the need for express advance authorisation from its copyright holder, you may disseminate it and distribute its content but solely for non-commercial purposes and without the right to create documents or works derived from it, and you must cite the source and author in all cases. In the case of a CC-BY-NC-SA licence, you may use the image without the express advance authorisation of its copyright holder, you may disseminate it and distribute its content, remix it, transform it and create a new image out of it, solely for non-commercial purposes and providing the creations are disseminated under the same licence as the original work. The source and author must be cited in all cases. Anyone interested in obtaining copies of these photographs in a higher resolution must apply for them from the BCNROC's “Contact” section. SEDAC will provide this material provided that it is for non-commercial, research or cultural purposes and that advance authorisation has been granted from its author(s).

    2. Where the work is protected and All rights reserved is stated in the "User conditions" metadata, if you wish to make any use and/or copies of it, you must contact the copyright owners directly and request their authorisation.

Barcelona City Council shall not be held responsible for any improper use of the images published in the BCNROC's municipal repository.

If you have any query over the user terms and conditions of the photographs, please email it to bcnroc@bcn.cat.

Citing the BCNROC's images

Irrespective of the use that is made of the photographs, you must always mention their authorship at the foot of the photo and/or their credits and also cite their source(s).

Examples of authorship acknowledgement:

  • ©Universitat de Barcelona. Polis Research Centre (to be mentioned at the foot of the photograph, page and/or in the credits)
  • ©Portell Penadés, Enric

Examples of citations:

  • Cunill, Julio; Department of Architecture. Barcelona City Council. Restoration of the Saló de Cent's damasks. In BCNROC [online]: Barcelona City Council’s Open-Knowledge Repository. [Consultation: 20 January 2016]. Available at: <https://bcnroc.ajuntament.barcelona.cat>.

Furthermore, photographs referred to in the Public Art website must be cited according to the scheme in the following example:

  • University of Barcelona. Polis Research Centre; Urban Projects. Barcelona City Council. Woman and pigeon. In BCNROC [online]: Barcelona City Council’s Open-Knowledge Repository. Reference source: Barcelona Virtual Museum of Public Art [Consultation: 20 January 2016]. Available at: <https://bcnroc.ajuntament.barcelona.cat>.