Publishing 12 - Commercial copyright Royalties publishing rates for atlases without advertising
To qualify for our commercial rates you must be publishing a Road Atlas or an Atlas of Street Map(s),
which is not supported by advertising and falls into the print run category shown below.
Copyright Royalty Rates
Effective from 1 April 2026
The rates shown below apply:
- When LPS/OSNI branded IP is used in publications which are entirely or substantially Atlases, ie.where there are multiple pages of mapping constituting the major part of the publication; and
- In all cases regardless of whether the publication is sold at a price or is free.
Our minimum charge for the issuing of a Publishing Permit is £60.30 + VAT
You need a Publishing Permit to publish Land & Property Services (LPS)/ Ordnance Survey of Northern Ireland® (OSNI®) branded Intellectual Property (IP). See Publishing 1 guidance notes for more information.
Categories of copying
To qualify for our commercial rates you must be publishing a Road Atlas or an Atlas of Street Map(s), which is not supported by advertising and falls into the print run category shown below. Where advertising supports your product please refer to our Standard Publishing Rates on Publishing 11.
The product you derive from LPS/ OSNI branded IP must be redrawn to your own specification and must not resemble LPS/ OSNI branded IP. LPS will require a draft of your proposed cartographical style. We will require verification of the print run number from your printer before we apply the commercial rates.
The charge categories are based on print runs.
The table below shows the Copyright Royalty rates, in pence per square centimetre, for each map page within your publication. The rates do not include VAT.
| Print Run | Pence per Square Centimetre |
| 2001-4000 Atlases | 0.0083 of a penny |
| 4001 + Atlases | 0.0057 of a penny |
For each print run of the publication, discounts on the above rates will apply as shown below.
| No of LPS/OSNI based map pages | Discount to be applied |
| 101 - 150 | 15% |
| 151 - 200 | 30% |
| 200+ | 40% |
Atlases of all of Northern Ireland will be assessed using the actual land area.
Other Atlases will accrue a 10% discount to account for overlaps.
To find out the Copyright charge, measure the area of your finished map page size in sq centimetres and using the correct category multiply the charge shown by the total number of map pages based on LPS/ OSNI branded IP and the number of copies made. Apply discount, if any, based on the LPS/ OSNI branded map pages.
Example
You wish to publish an A4 size (625 sq cm) Atlas of 200 LPS/OSNI branded map
pages with a print run of 4000 copies.
625 sq cm x 200 pages x 0.0083 = 1038 pence per atlas less 30% discount = 727 pence per atlas, divided by 100 to convert into pounds = £7.27 + VAT per atlas
- LPS will not charge you for maps derived and redrawn at a scale of 1:1,000,000 or smaller but the copyright acknowledgement must be shown.
- Areas of sea not mapped by LPS will be excluded when calculating the area to be charged for the purpose of determining the Royalties due.
- Rates apply to copies printed from 1st April 2026.
- These rates will be reviewed from 1st April 2027. Copies printed after this date may attract different royalty charges.
- VAT is charged at the rate prevailing on the date of the invoice.
- For publications which are supported by advertising the maximum discount will be 20% off the standard rates.
Other options available
- See Publishing 11 for standard publishing rates
- See Publishing 13 for flat maps and all other publications with a print run greater than 2000 - with no advertising included
- See Publishing 14 for Royalty rates for Media using crown LPS/ OSNI Intellectual Property (IP)
Need help?
If you have any questions or need anything clarified, you can send us a message to copyright@finance-ni.gov.uk.