The composition of coats of arms are generally public domain with respect to copyright laws, and may be reproduced freely.
This corresponds to the international traditional usage, and is explicitly stated in some national copyright laws. Some compositions, of more recent origin, may be copyrighted.
This is not a valid license as such, being a "public domain" statement for the coat of arms definition only. It must be completed with the copyright tag associated to the picture creation.
Please note that this applies only to the coat of arms definition (composition / description). The representation of a coat of arms is an artistic creation, subject as such to copyright laws.
Restriction of use - Legal notice: Most of the time, the usage of coats of arms is governed by legal restrictions, independent of the status of the depiction shown here. A coat of arms represents its owner. Though it can be freely represented, it cannot be appropriated, or used in such a way as to create a confusion with or a prejudice to its owner.
Usage on Commons: Please provide licence information for the coat of arm representation, information for the author of the picture, and the source if not self-made work.
The subject matter of copyright shall include expressions and not ideas, procedures, methods of operation or mathematical concepts as such.
The subject matter of copyright shall not include:
(1) discoveries, official texts in the domain of legislation, administration, judiciary (acts, regulations, decisions, reports, minutes, judgments, standards, and the like) and other official works and their collections, disclosed for the purpose of officially informing the public;
(2) news of the day and other news, having the character of mere items of press information;
Folk literary and artistic creations in their original form shall not be the subject matter of copyright, but their communication to the public is subject to the payment of remuneration, as for the communication to the public of protected copyright works. The remuneration shall be the revenue of the budget, and shall be used for improving the creativity in the field concerned.
Note:
Translations of official texts in the domain of legislation, administration and judiciary, shall be protected, unless made for the purpose of officially informing the public and are disclosed as such.
I, the copyright holder of this work, hereby publish it under the following license:
to share – to copy, distribute and transmit the work
to remix – to adapt the work
Under the following conditions:
attribution – You must give appropriate credit, provide a link to the license, and indicate if changes were made. You may do so in any reasonable manner, but not in any way that suggests the licensor endorses you or your use.
share alike – If you remix, transform, or build upon the material, you must distribute your contributions under the same or compatible license as the original.