Copyright Toolbox

1. Choose Area

Fair Dealing

Consider Rights Management

Publishing Considerations

Reading Lists

Seeking Permission

Contact Copyright Officer

Intellectual Property Policy

Library: Check for Material

2. Choose Sub-area

Research or Study

Criticism or Review

Parody or Satire

Reporting News

Judicial Proceedings or Professional Advice

What is fair and reasonable

License Your Content

Joint or Co-Authored Works

Ownership of the Work

Third Party Content

What constitutes 'Publishing'?

Following changes to the Copyright Act in December 2017, a single copyright notice has replaced the previous Part VA (broadcast material) notice and Part VB (text and graphic material) notice.

The new Copyright Notice (below) is required if text, images or graphic material, or free-to-air Australian radio and/or television broadcasts (including podcasts) are copied and/or communicated for UTS teaching and educational purposes, eg. via the Reading Lists, UTSOnline, other electronic teaching service, email or fax.

Teaching materials held in UTSOnline and the Reading Lists are automatically covered by this notice.

The notice should be displayed before or at the same time as the material being communicated. The wording of the Notice is approved by law and must not be changed.

WARNING

This material has been reproduced and communicated to you by or on behalf of the University of Technology Sydney in accordance with section 113P of the Copyright Act 1968 (Act).

The material in this communication may be subject to copyright under the Act. Any further reproduction or communication of this material by you may be the subject of copyright protection under the Act.

Do not remove this notice.

The Fair Dealing provisions of Australian Copyright legislation allow you to reproduce someone else’s work for your own research or study, without needing to seek the copyright owner’s permission, subject to the following conditions:

You can:

Copy up to 10% of the total number of pages, or 1 chapter, from a hardcopy work.
Copy up to 10% of the total number of words, or 1 chapter, if it is an electronic / digitised work.
Choose which form to copy from if the work is available in both hardcopy and electronic form.
Copy more than the above amounts by assessing what is a fair and reasonable portion what is a fair and reasonable portion to use for your circumstances, by applying the five considerations set out under the Fair Dealing for Research or Study provision.
Copy one or more articles from a periodical publication (eg journal, newspaper) provided these are for the same research or course of study.
Copy some or all of a published work that is out of copyright.

You must:

Properly attribute the author / creator of the work you have copied. The Copyright Act specifies that the attribution for an author or performer be made in a clear and reasonably prominent way.
Not copy the work for anyone else, or make it available to anyone else, unless you have permission to do so (for example: from the copyright owner, or you are reproducing it via other Australian Copyright Fair Dealing provisions mentioned in this website, such as for Criticism or Review, for Reporting the News, for Parody or Satire, or for Judicial proceedings or Professional Advice).

Alternatively, you can:

Check the copyright terms and conditions of each individual work to see if they allow more generous copying and communication terms.
Seek permission directly from the copyright owner (who may or may not be the author / creator) to use any amount of the work for your particular purpose. See Seeking Permission.

Ref: Fair Dealing s40, Fair Dealing s103C

The Fair Dealing provisions of Australian Copyright legislation allow you to reproduce someone else’s work for criticism or review, without needing to seek the copyright owner’s permission, provided sufficient acknowledgement of the work is made.

The provision does not specify how much you can copy for your purpose, so this needs to be carefully considered. It is advisable to limit copying to an amount that is sufficient for your genuine purpose to criticise or review that work.

Whilst this Fair Dealing provision does not specify what constitutes a ‘sufficient acknowledgement of the work’, elsewhere the Copyright Act specifies a right of attribution for an author or performer be made in a clear and reasonably prominent way.

Alternatively, you can:

Check the copyright terms and conditions of each individual work to see if they allow more generous copying and communication terms.
Seek permission directly from the copyright owner (who may or may not be the author / creator) to use any amount of the work for your particular purpose. See Seeking Permission.

Ref: Fair Dealing s41, Fair Dealing s103A

The Fair Dealing provisions of Australian Copyright legislation allow you to reproduce someone else’s work for parody or satire, without needing to seek the copyright owner’s permission.

It is also important to assess whether the parody or satire results in a derogatory treatment of the work or its author or performer. The Copyright Act specifies a range of moral rights including integrity of authorship and integrity of performership which protect an author or performer from certain derogatory treatment and false attribution.

Alternatively, you can:

Check the copyright terms and conditions of each individual work to see if they allow more generous copying and communication terms.
Seek permission directly from the copyright owner (who may or may not be the author / creator) to use any amount of the work for your particular purpose. See Seeking Permission.

Ref: Fair Dealing s41A, Fair Dealing s103AA

The Fair Dealing provisions of Australian Copyright legislation allow you to reproduce someone else’s work, without needing to seek the copyright owner’s permission, provided it is for the purpose of reporting news, and sufficient acknowledgement of the work is made.

The provision specifies that the purpose should be for, or associated with reporting news: in a newspaper, magazine, or similar periodical publication, or by means of a communication or film.

Alternatively, you can:

Check the copyright terms and conditions of each individual work to see if they allow more generous copying and communication terms
Seek permission directly from the copyright owner (who may or may not be the author / creator) to use any amount of the work for your particular purpose. See Seeking Permission.

Ref: Fair Dealing s42, Fair Dealing s103B

This Fair Dealing provision is primarily for legal purposes, allowing copying for judicial proceedings and for professional advice provided by a legal practitioner or a registered patent attorney or trade mark attorney.

Ref: Fair Dealing s43, Fair Dealing s104

To determine this you must apply the following five considerations to assess what is a fair and reasonable portion to copy for your circumstances:

The purpose and character of the dealing

It will be fairer if the copy is genuinely for your personal research or study, rather than the copy being made as part of a work you wish to sell.
The nature of the copyright material being copied

Depending on what is available, it may be fairer to copy more basic or generic material to meet your research or study needs, rather than copying material created with a high degree of skill.
The possibility of obtaining the copyright material within a reasonable time at an ordinary commercial price

It may be fairer to buy the material if the material is readily available and can be purchased at an ordinary commercial price.
The effect of the dealing on the potential market for, or value of, the copyright material

It will be fairer to buy a copy of the work if it is readily available, or copy a small, relevant part of the material, rather than copying a large or important part.
The amount and substantiality of the copied material in relation to the entire source of the material

It will be unfair to copy more than you genuinely need for your research or study purpose.

The copyright owner is usually the author or creator of the copyright material, unless ownership of the material has been signed over to someone else (eg. a publisher) or the author/creator has been contracted to create the material for someone else (eg. by their employer, by commission, etc.).

The copyright owner has exclusive rights over the copyright material, including the rights to:

Reproduce
Publish
Perform
Adapt
Communicate
Control rental in certain cases
Broadcast in certain cases

A copyright owner can allow others to use the copyright material in a limited way, eg. by licence or contract for a period of time, for a fee under certain conditions, by negotiating or assigning some or all of the individual rights mentioned above; or may choose to share the work broadly to encourage scholarship and rapid dissemination, eg. online via a Creative Commons licence. For more on licensing, see License your Content.

As a copyright owner it is worth remembering that you are entitled to protect your rights and negotiate with others who wish to use or publish your material, especially in cases where a publisher is seeking to own all your copyrights when they may only genuinely use a few of them, eg. reproduce, publish, communicate. See Publishing considerations.

If you are one of a number of authors creating or contributing to the same work, you will generally need permission from all authors to do certain things with the final work.

It is recommended that the authors have a written agreement or contract concerning the work to be published. The UTS Authorship Directive applies to research carried out under the auspices of UTS.

If you were requested, directed, commissioned or contracted to create the work, then ownership of the work, the research and any research outputs (reports, papers, other publications) will depend on any agreement attached to that arrangement.

Where you are employed by UTS at the time of the creation of the work, the UTS Intellectual Property Policy (UTS IP Policy) will apply. See UTS Intellectual Property Policy.

Where you have created the work from your own initiative, and intend to share or publish it, it is recommended that you license your work. This protects your rights and enables others to clearly understand what you wish to do with your work. See Licensing your work.

Most publications will include content that was created by others, known as third party content. Using third party content with or without seeking Permission requires careful consideration.

Many copyright materials have terms and conditions which permit a range of further uses. Also, Australian Copyright Law allows use of third party content, with or without seeking Permission, provided certain conditions are met (See Fair Dealing).

Some materials, such as Open Educational Resources (OER), may allow you to use some or all of their content without needing permission, but you will need to check the terms and conditions attached to each OER to determine what is covered.

Some materials may have specific terms and conditions which mean they cannot be used for your purpose. In such cases you should see if other material is available or create your own adaptation or version of the material.

In some cases it may be necessary to seek permission from the copyright owner.

It is important to use the appropriate amounts of any material created by others, including for quotes, extracts, diagrams, images, maps, sound, video, etc., and correctly cite these, before the work is shared with others and considered for publication.

In addition to the usually formalised arrangement between a publisher and author, publishing a work includes making the work available to the public in any way.

This can include self publication, sharing a work with anyone, hosting or posting it online via a blog, Twitter or other licensed service such as YouTube, Academia.com or any other accessible network. Sharing your work or a document with friends via email can be considered as publishing and copyright law immediately applies.

Sharing a link to a legally published work is not usually considered as publishing.

3. Choose License

Creative Commons

Negotiate Limited Rights

Further Legal Advice

Applying the © Your Name, Year is the traditional format for asserting ownership over the entire rights to the copyright material. These exclusive rights cover how the material is reproduced, published, performed, adapted, communicated, and in certain cases covers broadcasting and controlling rental (see Consider Rights Management for more).

Reproduction permitted for educational use; or
Reproduction permitted for any non-commercial use including educational use; or
Seek permission for the following uses (indicate the uses).

It is important to add further information near the licence statement to enable users to contact the copyright owner about citing or using the work.

The Creative Commons (CC) licenses are well known, internationally accepted, legal instruments for protecting copyright. The six main CC licenses enable the copyright owner to limit what users can do with the work, whilst ensuring conditions which promote broad sharing of the work, particularly digital works.

Briefly, the six licenses - from most open to most restrictive - are:

CC-BY an attribution-only license, allowing others to copy, distribute, remix, tweak and build on the work, including for commercial use, provided they credit the creator of the work.
CC-BY-NC an attribution plus non-commercial license, allowing others to copy, distribute, remix, tweak and build on the work, provided it is for non-commercial use and they credit the creator of the work.
CC-BY-SA an attribution plus share-alike license, allowing others to copy, distribute, remix, tweak and build on the work, including for commercial use, provided they credit the creator of the work and license any derivative work under the same terms (thus "share alike").
CC-BY-NC-SA an attribution plus non-commercial share-alike license, allowing others to copy, distribute, remix, tweak and build on the work, provided it is for non-commercial use and they credit the creator of the work and license any derivative work under the same terms, meaning that any derivative work must be licensed under the same terms.
CC-BY-ND an attribution plus "no changes" license, allowing others to reproduce and distribute the work for commercial or non-commercial use, provided the work is not changed in any way or used to make derivatives and they credit the creator of the work.
CC-BY-NC-ND an attribution plus non-commercial and "no changes" license, allowing others to reproduce and distribute the work, provided it is for non-commercial use and the work is not changed in any way or used to make derivatives and they credit the creator of the work.

For a quick guide on how to make, apply and use the six licenses, see A Guide to Using and Applying the Creative Commons (CC) License.

It is important to add further information near the license statement to enable users to cite the work or contact the copyright owner about using the work.

The SPARC addendum and Science Commons addenda are useful legal instruments, designed for use by academics who want to protect their rights as they seek to publish their scholarly works.

These limited rights agreements assist authors/creators to identify their ongoing needs for a particular work and then negotiate with a publisher who might otherwise want to take over all the authors/creators' copyrights in return for publishing the work.

There are many situations where independent legal advice will best address your needs, especially where you wish to carefully control the rights over, release of, and access to, your work.

Other considerations would include how to recognise individual contributions to joint and multiple author works, or works that include controversial, confidential or otherwise private or restricted material.

Legal advice from lawyers who specialise in certain intellectual property areas, eg. music, film, software, design, patents, etc. would especially benefit authors/creators who have a strong interest in the commercial opportunities arising from publishing or sharing their work.

For further consideration and advice, see Australian Copyright Council Legal Advice Service, Arts Law Centre of Australia Legal Services, or contact the relevant licensing and collection agency: Screenrights, OneMusic Australia or Copyright Agency.

The DRR is a database that allows staff to lodge teaching material and students to locate copyright cleared teaching materials, such as course ereadings for specific subjects.

Staff submitting teaching material for UTSOnline or the DRR can seek copyright clearance by the DRR and eReadings team during the submission process.

Contact lib-reserve-cc@uts.edu.au for further information or assistance on the DRR.

Reading Lists provide access to required and recommended readings, both in digital and physical formats for students. UTS teaching staff may create lists and add resources. When a list is ready for publishing, the Library will perform a copyright compliance check and undertake resource handling.

Please contact the UTS Copyright Officer if you have a query about the information contained in this site or a general or specific copyright or licensing matter.

In certain cases it is best to seek permission directly from the copyright owner to use their material. You will need to locate the current copyright owner of the work and specify exactly what part/s of the copyright material you would like to use, and your reasons for using that material.

You should:

Contact the owner(s) of the material by email or in writing;
Include your name, contact details, plus your University name and program of study or research (if applicable);
Indicate the copyright material (title, year of publication) and the amount you wish to use;
Explain how the material will be used and whether you intend to publish;
Ask if they are the current copyright owner (if not, seek their advice in locating the current owner) and request permission to use the material;
Indicate that the material will be referenced and their permission acknowledged; and
Keep copies of the requests made and permissions received.

Remember that:

Gaining permission may require time and patience;
Some owners may charge a fee or refuse your request; and
Online material, or organisations that own online content, often have information under ‘terms and conditions’ on their website, which specifies conditions for using their work.

UTS Library staff can check or confirm if a particular work is available, either commercially or by loan from another library.

View Ordering Material for further details.

Where a work is not readily available or cannot be obtained by UTS Library in a reasonable timeframe, special copying provisions may apply to an existing copy of the work. Contact the Library for copyright assistance.

The UTS IP policy governs ownership of UTS related IP, in particular the conditions and categories that apply to staff, employees, contractors, researchers, students, and others undertaking UTS, and UTS related, activities.

Some important considerations covered in the UTS IP Policy include:

Ownership of IP on joining UTS (see section 5.1.5)
Ownership of course and educational materials (see section 5.1.3)
Ownership of creative or scholarly works (see section 5.1.3)
Ownership of commissioned works (see section 5.1.4)
Ownership of student works (see sections 5.1.6 – 5.1.7)
Commercialisation of works and research created or undertaken at UTS (see section 5.2)
UTS license to use works created by staff or students (see sections 5.1.3, 5.1.7)

The purpose and character of the dealing

The nature of the copyright material being copied

The possibility of obtaining the copyright material within a reasonable time at an ordinary commercial price

The effect of the dealing on the potential market for, or value of, the copyright material

The amount and substantiality of the copied material in relation to the entire source of the material

Acknowledgement of Country