Central Bureau for Astronomical Telegrams

Central Bureau for Astronomical Telegrams -- Image credits

World-Wide Web Policy

The following policy statement and statement of copyright applies to the distribution of the material on the World Wide Web that is made available by the Central Bureau for Astronomical Telegrams (CBAT) and Minor Planet Center (MPC) (some is freely available, but many of the CBAT/MPC webpages are available only through a paid subscription):
  • Copyright exists in all original material (i.e., nearly everything) on the CBAT/MPC/ICQ pages. Material that does not originate with CBAT/MPC/ICQ will be clearly marked.
    • You should never assume that material on the WWW is in the public domain, unless this fact is clearly stated.

  • Some Circulars are made freely-accessible at this site only under the following specific non-negotiable licence (which is subject to amendment at any time):
    • The IAU Circulars and CBETs remain a copyrighted publication of the IAU's Central Bureau for Astronomical Telegrams; only the older CBAT publications are available freely (more recently published IAUCs and CBETs are available only to paying subscribers).
    • The Minor Planet Electronic Circulars remain a copyrighted publication of the IAU's Minor Planet Center.
    • Circulars are for your personal individual scientific use only.
    • Redistribution of the circulars posted on this web site is not permitted in any form.
      • Circulars are not freely distributable.
      • Specifically, circulars must not be redistributed to Usenet newsgroups or to e-mail lists.
    • Libraries and institutions that wish to forward circulars to internal mailing lists must continue to have a subscription and to receive the circulars via e-mail.
    • Circulars must not be posted on your own publically-available Web pages. If you wish to refer to a circular from your own page, read these instructions.
      • Subscribing libraries and institutions may post circulars on private Web pages accessible only from within the library or institution, althought you are encouraged to point to the circulars on our site.
      • Such postings may not include circulars that were issued before a subscription was started, or circulars that were not e-mailed to you (i.e., you may not post the OCR'd IAUCs that are currently being computerized).
    • Any free availability of Circulars at this site is on a trial basis and is subject to withdrawal at any time without warning.

  • Data files, whether freely-available (such as the MPCORB orbit database) or via subscription (such as the databases of observations), are also copyrighted entities. Subscription datasets are for your own personal scientific use and must not be redistributed in any form. Freely-available datasets may be redistributed as long as the source for the data is clearly specified.

  • Selected information extracted from this circulars or this web site may be occasionally (NOT regularly) used in publications, whereby actual quoting of no more than one or two sentences (or paraphrasing) is used, if appropriate reference to the source of the information is acknowledged.
    • The blanket extraction of all or most material appearing on all or most circulars is not permitted.
    If you wish to republish material that is attributed to someone outside CBAT/MPC, you must seek permission from the person attributed as the source.

  • Inclusion of circulars or web pages in products of any description (including, but not limited to CD-Roms and magazines), whether or not a charge is made for the product, is strictly prohibited unless express written permission has been obtained in advance.

  • These pages may be freely pointed to from your own personal pages. You should not copy pages to your own Web site. Many of our pages are updated frequently and it is confusing if there are out-of-date copies at other sites.
    • Pages and images on our site MUST NOT be inlined at your site (for example, enclosed in a frame residing on your site). Your pages and the links therein to our site must be designed with this restriction in mind.
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