Copyright basics

Introducing copyright

In Australia, copyright is governed by the Copyright Act 1968. This act outlines the rights of copyright owners, and details how copyright material can be used.

In Australia you do not register your copyright material. Material is protected as soon as it is put into material form, such as being written down, saved or recorded.

The law enables the individual who creates the material to have economic and moral rights, to the material including:

Economic rights

• Reproduce the material – photocopy, scan, download and save.
• Publish – publish it on the internet or in print form, put it on a cover of a magazine, install in a public place or release the song.
• Communicate the material to the public– send it out to the public, allow public viewing on the internet or distribute a print book.
• Broadcast – broadcast the material using traditional broadcasting techniques.
• Perform – sing, put on a public performance, act it out, recite.
• Make adaptations of the material – translate to different languages, turn it into something else like a book to a TV show.

Moral rights

• Attribution – to be recognised as the creator of that material. This applies even if you have sold or rented any of your economic rights, or if your employer owns the economic rights.
• Not to be falsely attributed – not have any copyright material falsely attributed to you, included works created by AI.
• Integrity – ensure your work is protected against derogatory treatment that could be harmful to the creator’s honour or reputation. This applies even if you have sold or rented any of your economic rights, or if your employer owns the economic rights.

Type of material protected

The type of material that is protected is identified in the Copyright Act 1968; under 2 categories – original works and subject matter other than works.

Original works

Original material is divided into 4 sub-categories:

• Literary – text-based materials such as books, emails, journals, magazines, text websites, software code, poems, newspapers, data forms, song lyrics.
• Artistic – visual based material such as paintings, engravings, blueprints, models, photos, sculptures, digital images, graphic art, memes, maps, plans.
• Musical – musical scores.
• Dramatic – documented human movement activities such as choreography, scripts, circus, theatrical production.

Subject matter other than works

This group is divided into 6 sub-categories:

• Sound recordings – audio based materials such as recorded music, audio books, audio interviews, podcasts.
• Film – audiovisual based materials such as TV shows, online videos, movies, streaming, YouTube clips, Vimeo clips, advertisements.
• Broadcasts (television and radio) – the version that is broadcast on traditional broadcasting technology.
• Published edition – the version that is published to the market such as traditional books, journals, magazines, compact discs, DVDs, placed on a website, streamed.
• Computer programs – the version that is published to the market such as software (operating, drivers, firmware, applications), apps, games, online games, console games.
• Compilations – where there is sufficient human decision-making in the compilation, then copyright rights can be applied to the collections, such as yellow pages, timetables, TV guides, research data.

Ownership of copyright

In the first instance the creator of the material is the copyright owner, although there are some recognised exceptions.

• If material is created during employment, the employer owns the economic rights to the material.
• Creators can give away, sell (assign) or rent (license) some or all their economic rights to a person or company. For example, an author could sell the movie adaptation right of their book to a film company, a researcher could give away their publishing rights for a journal to publish their article.
• Contractual agreements to create material may include who will own the copyright of the material. For example, a research funding agreement may stipulate that the funding organisation owns all economic rights.
• A copyright creator cannot renounce, or sell their moral rights.

ACU staff should check the Intellectual Property Policy for any clarification around what ACU as an employer owns.

Length of copyright

The length of time copyright rights can last vary. The Copyright Act 1968 contains detailed information about the length of copyright. However, in general:

• If you can identify the creator of the material: copyright lasts for the duration of the creator’s life plus 70 years.
• If you cannot identify the creator of the material: copyright lasts for 70 years from the year of publication or creation date.
• Government and broadcasts last for 50 years from publish/broadcast year.
• A published edition lasts 25 years from year released to market.

Once copyright has expired, material enters the public domain and can be used by anybody for any purpose.

Key terms and phrases

All Rights Reserved

A term used on copyright material to indicate that the copyright owner or publisher has chosen to maintain and enforce all their economic and moral rights under copyright law. These rights are defined in the Copyright Act 1968, and can be bought, sold or licensed.

Creative Commons

Creative Commons [CC] is a licensing system that provides a way for creators, companies and institutions to share their work with others on flexible terms without infringing copyright. The licences allow users to reuse, remix and share the content legally. Check the Creative Commons website for detailed information. ACU encourages the use of CC material at ACU. ACU staff should check the Copyright Use of Third-Party Works Procedure for clarification.

Offering work under a Creative Commons licence does not mean giving up copyright. It means permitting users to make use of works material in various ways, but only on certain conditions. ACU encourages the use of the CC licences for ACU copyright owned material where appropriate, see the Intellectual Property Policy for clarification.

• Students and researchers – Creative Commons enables you to use more than the limits under fair dealing for research and study. It also allows other uses like placing on the internet.
• Teachers – using Creative Commons material allows you to use more than the limits set under the CA 113P statutory licence.

Licensed material

As an educational institution, ACU purchases a range of material to use for educational purposes, for example the library purchases databases or online videos.

These must be used within the terms of the licence. Check with your Faculty or the Library for terms of use.

Public domain

A term used for creative material where there is no ownership, and no economic or moral rights attributed to the material. There are a number of reasons why creative material is in the public domain.

• When the length of copyright on the material has expired.
• An organisation/creator can declare their work into the public domain, USA federal government for example.
• AI created works.

There is no legal requirement to provide attribution of public domain material. However, providing attribution is best practice.

Third-party material

A term used generically to identify any copyright materials that were not created by the individual or a company that an individual works for.