Copyright licences
In order for the Driving Standards Agency to ensure that appropriate learning material is available in the retail market to support the learner or novice driver, DSA licenses the official DSA theory test question banks and 16 simulated hazard perception test video clips for use by other publishers by way of a Crown Copyright Licence Agreement.
Royalty based Crown Copyright licence
This category of licence is required when an applicant wishes to reuse any DSA Crown Copyright material within a product that is to be offered for sale on a commercial basis.
Royalty rates
Royalty rates payable:
- 15 per cent of net sales revenue for each electronic product sold (for example, CD Roms, web, and mobile phone-based applications)
- 10 per cent of net sales revenue for each paper-based product sold (for example, books)
These rates vary if the Copyright Material used in the publication constitutes less than 50 per cent of the entire product. 'Net Sales Revenue' means after tax, expenses, or agents discounts have been deducted.
Certified Royalty statements are to be submitted within 30 days of the end of each financial quarter. DSA will then issue an invoice within 14 days after receipt of the certified statement. Each payment of royalty will be due and payable within 14 days of receipt of DSA’s invoice. To pay by credit card please telephone 0115 936 6271 and have your credit card to hand.
Please note we only accept MasterCard, Switch, Visa and Delta Cards.
Failure to pay royalties can incur a 2 per cent charge per annum above the base lending rate. A nil statement should be submitted if no sales took place during that financial period.
Memorandum of Understanding (MoU)
MoUs are issued to other governments or governmental departments who use DSA's official theory test question banks, for example, Guernsey, Jersey, and the Isle of Man.
Crown Copyright licences for translated material
Translation Crown Copyright licences are available on application for anyone wishing to translate DSA Crown Copyright material into languages other than English. Any type of product can be produced for a flat fee of £250 plus Value Added Tax (VAT).
Educational, Research and British Sign Language Crown Copyright Licences
An Educational Crown Copyright Licence Agreement is available to Educational establishments where pupils are not charged for access to the material and there is no commercial gain involved. There is no fee for this licence and it is valid for one year. With this licence a CD containing 150 theory test questions and eight hazard perception clips are provided free to the college or school to allow the pupils an insight as to what to expect on their theory test.
A Research Crown Copyright Licence Agreement is available should you wish to use Copyright data for a research project or coursework purpose. This licence is free and is valid for one year provided the student or researcher can confirm that:
- The finished item / course work is not copied, sold, published electronically or passed off in any way as being available for sale and will deliver up a copy of the said work to the DSA within a reasonable time before any results are published.
- An acknowledgement regarding the use of Crown Copyright material is provided in the body of the text as follows: “Crown Copyright material has been reproduced by permission of the Driving Standards Agency which does not accept any responsibility for the accuracy of the reproduction”.
A British Sign Language Translation Crown Copyright Licence is available for anyone wishing to use crown copyright material to create products and learning materials for the deaf. This licence is free, is valid for three years and includes complimentary theory test question banks and hazard perception clips.
All the theory test question banks are available for reuse under the Crown Copyright Licence and can also be purchased by licensees in electronic format.
The official theory test question banks are:
- car
- motorcycle
- car or motorcycle
- large goods vehicle (LGV) or passenger carrying vehicle (PCV)
- approved driving instructor (ADI) Part 1
The individual question banks one to five are available to purchase in the following electronic formats:
Filemaker Pro runtime on CD-Rom including gif images (either for PC or Apple Mac). The runtime feature makes it unnecessary to have Filemaker Pro installed on your PC. Price: £350 plus VAT per disc.
Quark Xpress on CD-Rom including high resolution and screen resolution graphics. Price: £450 plus VAT per disc.
Please note that fees quoted are for each individual question bank. To pay by credit card please telephone 0115 936 6271 and have your credit card to hand.
Question banks are usually updated on an annual basis. Licensees are given approximately six months notice of any changes, together with a publication embargo date. There can be exceptions to these arrangements, however all licensees are informed accordingly.
Hazard perception test simulated video clips
In addition to the theory test question banks, licensees can also purchase a maximum of 16 simulated hazard perception test video clips.
These licensed clips will not be used in the live test but are provided for licensees to include within their products. The reason for not releasing ‘live’ clips is because unlike the multiple choice element of the theory test there is no right or wrong answer.
A hazard perception test is based on measuring the latency of a candidate’s response to developing situations as a measure of their scanning techniques and anticipation skills. If a candidate frequently reviews a clip the validity of that measurement is dramatically reduced. Consequently, if candidates were given the opportunity to rehearse on live clips in learning products, when confronted with these clips within the test it would not be giving a true measure of the time the candidate would take to identify a developing hazard. Releasing live clips would therefore unacceptably compromise the objectives and validity of the test.
A licensee may purchase eight or the maximum of 16 clips, however in order to protect the integrity of the hazard perception part of the theory test only 10 clips can be used in a single product. Fees for the clips are as follows:
Eight clips £150 plus VAT
16 clips £300 plus VAT