Copyright Contacts and FAQs

Copyright contacts

If you have a question about copyright at Southern Cross University please email: copyright@scu.edu.au

Frequently asked questions

Copyright is a system of laws that are designed to protect the works of authors or creators from unauthorised copying and transmission, whilst at the same time allowing the public to have reasonable access to information.

Copyright applies automatically but does not apply to an idea. The form of expression must be recorded or written down.

Australian Copyright Law is contained in a piece of federal legislation called The Copyright Act 1968.

In most cases, copyright will be owned by the author or creator of the work.

The copyright owner has the right to reproduce, control "public" performance and screenings, make adaptations and communicate (place online) the material. Copyright ownership can be transferred, for example by assignment in a contract with a publisher, in a contract of employment, or bequeathed in a will.

Copyright usually lasts for 70 years after the death of the creator of the work, however this varies for different types of works. More information is available on length of copyright.

Students

  • You will own the copyright in the works that you create - that is, the copyright in any assignments, research, theses, essays, papers, websites, artistic or musical works that you create, will be owned by you.
  • Some exceptions may apply:
    • If you are a member of a research team, you may sign an agreement regarding the ownership of intellectual property.
    • If you are an employee, then your employer will normally own the copyright in any works that you create as part of your job.
    • If you are on work experience or placement, you should find out from your supervisor what the situation is regarding ownership. (If the employer is not paying you, they are unlikely to own the copyright in works that you create, but make sure.)

Copyright in your thesis

In most cases, the copyright in your thesis will be owned by you. Exceptions apply where the thesis;

  • Is subject to a commercial-in-confidence agreement. If the research you are undertaking as part of your thesis is sponsored by a commercial entity you will be contracted to the entity. The commercial entity may own the copyright in your thesis. Check your contractual agreement.
  • Contains published articles written by you. Be sure to check the author-publisher agreement to ensure you can include the articles in the online version of your thesis.

Placing a copy of your thesis on the internet is considered publishing your thesis and you will need to seek permission from the copyright owner for the use of any third-party materials in the online version of your thesis. If permission is not granted the material may be removed from the online version by Research Portal staff and replaced with the following statement.

e.g. Figure removed due to copyright restrictions.

Staff

The University asserts ownership of all Intellectual Property Rights created or developed by any Staff Member in pursuance of the terms of his or her contract of employment with the University including, without limitation, Intellectual Property Rights. The University retains a discretion to disclaim its ownership in respect of any Work created or developed by Staff Members, such as, journal articles. Please refer to the Intellectual property policy for further information.

Use of copyright material outside the provisions of the Copyright Act and the educational (statutory) licence conditions and without the explicit permission of copyright owners is contrary to both the Copyright Act 1968 and the University's Copyright Policy.

There are many opportunities to use a range of materials in your teaching, either in a classroom situation, within the online environment, and via paper-based delivery methods.

The purpose of this site and the Copyright Office is to provide guidance and advice on allowable uses and to assist in seeking alternatives where your intended use may not clearly fall within your understanding of copyright law.

In the language of copyright, the things that a person creates, such as essays, photographs, cartoons, stories, novels, term papers, paintings, maps, plays and musical scores are called 'works'. So there are literary works (books, letters, articles, term papers etc.), dramatic works (plays, film scripts, scenarios, treatments and the like), musical works (this means scores, music that is written down, NOT recorded music), and artistic works (photos, paintings, drawings, animations, diagrams, etc.).

Audiovisual items such as films and sound recordings are referred to as "subject matter other than works" or sometimes just "subject matter".

Are you confused yet? Well, just to add another dimension, a computer program is designated a 'literary work', and recorded music (CDs, MP3 files, tapes, records, etc.) is classed with audiovisual items as 'subject matter other than works'.

You don't have to register copyright. In Australia, copyright protection is automatic. There is no need to register your work. Once the work is created, and 'exists in a material form' i.e. is written down, printed, painted, photographed, recorded on disk or hard drive, then it is protected by copyright. Of course, the work has to be original, and not a copy of someone else's.

A copyright owner has a number of exclusive rights, that is things that only he or she can do, or authorise someone else to do. In general, these rights are:

  • to make copies of the work
  • to publish the work
  • to perform the work in public
  • to make adaptations of the work - e.g. make a novel into a screenplay
  • to communicate the work to the public - i.e. to put the work online and make it accessible to the public.

A full table of exclusive rights is listed in the glossary. If someone else does any of these things without your permission, they will infringe your copyright.

You can do several things. Firstly, approach the person concerned and point out to them that they have taken your work without permission. If no agreement can be reached, you may have to ask a lecturer, or the head of school, or the University Copyright Officer for assistance. These people will be able to advise you what to do. It will be important that you are able to prove your ownership of the material.

Plagiarism occurs when you take the ideas of someone else and present them as your own. Under University Rules, plagiarism is an offence. Penalties range from nil marks to expulsion from the University.

Although you may avoid copyright infringement by rewriting the ideas into a different arrangement, you may breach the ethical standards of the University if those ideas are not attributed.

If you have bought some computer software, or you are a licensed user, the Copyright Act says that you may make a copy of the program for the purposes of backup, research and study, error correction, interoperability (making your program interact with other software) and security testing.

If you are the legitimate owner or a licensed user of a computer program, sections 47AB to 47H of the Copyright Act specify the circumstances under which a reproduction of the program is allowed to be made. Broadly, these circumstances are:

  • to make a backup copy
  • to use the copy and store the original
  • to develop interoperable programs
  • error correction
  • security testing
  • data backup.

Copying software for any other purpose is a copyright infringement and carries heavy penalties. University policy prohibits the presence of illegally obtained or unlicensed software on University-owned equipment.

The Copyright Act has some sections in it called the 'fair dealing' sections. One of these sections relates to 'fair dealing for research and study'.

This section says that you may copy a 'reasonable portion' of a work for your own research and study. The Act says that a reasonable portion is 10% or one chapter of a book, or one article from any one issue of a journal. If the material you want to copy is in digital format, then you can copy one chapter, if the work is in chapters, or 10% of the number of words, if it is not divided into chapters.

Pictures, animations, graphics and diagrams may be copied also.

Research and study includes assessment, so you may include portions of works in your assignments, projects and theses, provided that you attribute the sources properly.

If you later want to publish your thesis as a book, or are required to include it in the institutional repository, then you will need to contact the copyright owners of any images or substantial portions of text, that you have used, and ask for their written permission to use these items in your published work. This is because when the thesis goes online, it will be being communicated to the public and this is not covered by the 'fair dealing' provisions. More information on Copyright in your thesis.

The same kind of 'fair dealing' applies to subject matter other than works (e.g. sound recordings, videos, etc.), so it would be possible to make copies of reasonable portions of these things for research and study.

What is a 'reasonable portion' is not defined for these things though, so you need to be careful to ensure that your use falls within the realms of 'fair dealing'.

You need to take the following criteria into account when determining whether the dealing is 'fair'.

The purpose of the dealing
For example, copying in a study environment will be more likely to be fair than copying to use the item commercially.

The nature of the work
It may be less fair to copy a work with a high degree of skill than it would to copy one based on less skill.

The possibility of obtaining the work within a reasonable time at an ordinary commercial price
Are you copying the work because you don't want to buy it, even though it is readily available at the standard price?

The effect of the dealing on the potential market for, or value of, the work
For example, making one copy for your personal use is more likely to be a fair use than making a number of copies, and

In a case where part only of the work or adaptation is copied, the amount and substantiality of the part copied taken in relation to the whole work or adaptation
It would be considered less fair to copy a large or important part of the work than it would to copy a small or unimportant part.

If you have used a portion of someone else's work under the 'fair dealing' provisions, you have to remember that you can only use it for that purpose. So if, for instance, you had created a website as a class assignment in which you used some animations or graphics from somewhere else, you cannot use that website for any other purpose, such as inclusion in an employment portfolio, or for entry in a Web design competition, or any other use outside SCU, unless you get permission from the copyright owner.

The other thing to remember is that making a copy for a friend, or to stick on the fridge, or for entertainment, isn't a 'fair dealing', and could cause you problems. Learn more about 'fair dealing'.

You may have heard that all the stuff on the Internet and the World Wide Web is free. Well, that's not quite correct. Certainly material is freely available, but it all belongs to someone, and whilst there is generally no harm in your downloading material for personal use, to distribute that material further would infringe someone's copyright. If you want to use material found on the Web for your research and study, you may do so under the 'fair dealing' provisions, but remember that you are restricted to using the material for that purpose only.

Music is particularly dangerous stuff to deal with online. The Music Industry, the people who own the copyright in the songs, are very keen to defend their property. There are many websites offering free downloads of music, or offering music for a small fee, and most of these sites are offering illegal copies. If you come across a website offering lots of downloads from many different bands and artists, then you can be pretty sure they aren't legitimate. Note that using University equipment and networks to download music for entertainment purposes is a breach of the University Computing Conditions of Use rules, and will cause you to be involved in disciplinary action and perhaps have your account suspended.

Copyright amendments in December 2006 permit making copies of legitimate music recordings that you own into another format, e.g. for use on mp3 player or on to CD. You must own the device on which the copy is to be played, and you cannot give away copies. This conversion is permitted for private and domestic use only.

As part of the Copyright Act, you have two 'moral rights'. These are the right of attribution, that is, the right to have your name associated with works you create, and the right of integrity, that is, the right to not have your work changed or altered without your consent in any way that would harm your reputation. There's a much fuller discussion of 'moral rights' in the 'Key copyright concepts' section.

Licensing conditions on the individual electronic database services generally allow printing a limited number of hard copies of full text articles, as well as storing an item or search details electronically. The guidelines for amounts of copying are similar to those in a paper-based environment, including the illegality of copying a complete edition of a journal.

Here are some links to sites where you can search for open or Creative Commons licensed images:

If you need more information, or are unsure about something, contact the Copyright Office.

Good luck with your studies!

Reproduction

  • One article from each issue, or more if the subject matter is closely related.
  • Note that the reproduction and distribution of material from Library databases may be subject to separate licence conditions. Contact the Copyright Office for more information.

Communication online (placing on websites)

Reproduction

  • In a work greater than ten pages, one chapter or 10% of pages, whichever is the greater (10% of words if electronic source except a computer program or an electronic compilation).
  • This amount can be reproduced per lecturer or student per year.
  • More than a reasonable portion - if work is out of print, or not available within a reasonable time at an ordinary commercial price (the availability test).

Example

A 60-page book may be divided into six chapters. You may copy one whole or part of a single chapter, even though the number of pages copied exceeds 10% of the total pages in the book, or you may copy six (6) pages (10% of total) from throughout the book.

Communication online (placing on websites)

Reproduction

  • All of a work that has not been separately published.
  • All of an artwork that accompanies or explains the text being copied.
  • All of an artwork if copied from an electronic source.

Example:

A diagram in a book that has not been published, for example as a postcard or a poster, can be reproduced in full.

A photo that is included in a page of text being copied can be reproduced without having to investigate whether separately published.

An artwork copied from an electronic source, e.g. a website, can be reproduced without having to investigate whether separately published.

Communication online (placing on websites):

Reproduction

  • A reasonable portion - in a work greater than ten pages, one chapter or 10% of pages (10% of words if electronic source except a computer program or an electronic compilation) - whichever is the greater.
  • This amount can be reproduced per lecturer or student per year.
  • More than a reasonable portion - if work is out of print, or not available within a reasonable time at an ordinary commercial price (the availability test)

Communication online (placing on websites)

  • Amount as for reproduction
  • Must contain the 113P Copyright warning notice
  • Must be registered with myReadings
  • Access must be restricted to staff and students
  • Must be referenced
  • Only one part of a work may be made available online at one time university-wide, regardless of intended audience.

Please refer to the Tertiary Music Agreement for sheet music.

See also:

  • Sound recordings

Reproduction

  • If a retailer or publisher confirms in writing that a work is out of print, or that an electronic copy is not available, then you may reproduce and communicate more than a reasonable portion (including the whole item). Keep a record of enquiries.
  • See the availability test

Communication online (placing on websites)

Reproduction

  • A work of less than 15 pages contained in an anthology (hard copy source).
  • For works in electronic form, all of a work that has not been separately published or 10% of the number of words in a work that has been separately published.
  • More than 10% subject to the availability test

Communication online (placing on websites)

Commercially produced sound recordings may be used in classroom settings, provided the audience is restricted to bona fide students and staff, as these are not considered to be public performances. They cannot be copied under this licence.

Reproduction

  • Sound recordings reproduced from TV or Radio under licence may be reproduced without size limitations
  • Digital copies must contain an AV Warning Notice
  • Analog copies must be labelled in accordance with licence conditions

Communication online (placing on websites)

  • Broadcasts reproduced under the Screenrights licence can be communicated
  • Must contain AV Warning Notice
  • Access must be restricted to staff and students
  • Must be referenced
  • Embedding via ClickView complies with the licence

Reproduction

  • Copies of any items television broadcast on all free-to-air (ABC, SBS, commercial stations), satellite, microwave pay (e.g. Austar) and cable pay television (Foxtel and Optus Vision) may be reproduced without size limitations.
  • Analog copies or their containers must be marked in accordance with licence conditions.
  • Digital copies must contain the AV Warning Notice

Communication online (placing on websites)

See also Using DVDs, YouTube and videos in your teaching

While all digital copies need to be registered, only the files to be made available online need to be located in myReadings.

Lecturers register and submit files through myReadings. To ensure compliance with our educational licence this is the only place that material can be made available online. The University's copyright policy specifies that:

Individuals are responsible for;

ensuring that any copyrighted material used under the Statutory licence or any other licence is registered with the relevant Library copyright management system.

The administration of the items, including re-registrations, is undertaken by staff in the University Library.

  • Email all tables of content or bibliographies to myreadings@scu.edu.au.
  • The Library will create the reading lists in myReadings and notify you when the list is complete.
  • You may like to take control of creating your own lists. Contact the myReadings team to find out more.

All digital reproductions of copyright material made available to students must be registered with the Copyright Office.

The Copyright Act imposes university-wide limitations on the communication of certain categories of copyright material. Copies must also contain a 113P Copyright warning notice and only be available to staff and students of the institution.

To ensure that the University is complying with the communication limitations and other conditions, items that are to be available online are located in (and accessed from) a centrally-administered database.

This location is myReadings.

The registration requirement applies to material reproduced in digital form from both hard copy and digital sources. It does not apply to hard copy output, but remember that reproduction limitations apply to copies in any format (for example, you cannot digitally reproduce one chapter and reproduce a different chapter from the same book in hard copy form).

Items that are able to be copied under statutory licence are restricted to specific categories and limitations, see How much can I copy?

Amounts that fall outside the reproduction and communication conditions of the statutory licence will generally require permission from copyright owners.

Uses, other than educational use, may also require explicit permission from copyright owners, which require consideration of a number of issues.

Fair dealing is generally associated with personal use, for example use for research and study or for criticism and review. Please check with the Copyright Officer if you are unsure.

Digital reproductions in the following categories do not have to be registered:

Please notify myReadings staff of material for which you have explicit and separate approval from owners. Although the material does not come under statutory licensing rules, details are required for record keeping purposes.

The educational licence permits copies of copyright works to be distributed to offshore students. These copies may be on paper or on CD (with the appropriate 113P Copyright warning notice). The students receiving the copies must be officially enrolled with SCU.

All copying must be undertaken within Australia, as it is under Australian law the copying is allowed to be done. Any copying undertaken in another jurisdiction is subject to the laws of that country. This means that if you intend taking master copies of course materials to an offshore teaching location, there needs to be provision in that country's copyright legislation for you to do so, and if required, a formalised licence agreement.

Online material and offshore students

Works may also be communicated online to offshore students, however the server holding the item must be located in Australia for the educational licence conditions to be valid. This means that you cannot host or mirror copyright materials on servers based outside Australia. All copyright materials communicated online must also be registered and placed in myReadings.

Using AV works offshore

Programs recorded off-air within Australia may be used in educational settings in Australia or offshore (i.e. you can take them with you). Whether you can copy off-air from an offshore location is subject to the laws of that country.

Broadcast copy tapes must be appropriately marked, as per the statutory licence for broadcast copies. Such programs may be also be communicated online, subject to the fixation of AV Warning Notice and the server being based in Australia.

While in Australia commercially produced items can be shown in class, the copyright laws of the offshore location may differ. Check the local jurisdictions.

Educational institutions can copy (to or from digital or hard copy) and communicate material for the purposes of assisting students with a print disability.

What is a print disability?

  • a person without sight
  • a person whose sight is severely impaired
  • a personal unable to move or focus their eyes or hold or manipulate books
  • a person with a perceptual disability.

People with dyslexia are included in the definition of 'print disability'. However, slow learners or people learning English as a second language are not.

What can be copied and/or communicated?

You may make one or more Braille, large print or photographic versions of published literary or dramatic works.

You may also make one or more recordings on 'disc, tape or paper or other device in which sounds are embodied' of a literary or dramatic work.

What cannot be copied under these provisions?

Anything that can be obtained, after reasonable investigation, in the required format within a reasonable time at an ordinary, commercial price (see Commercial availability test in the Glossary).

Commercially produced films and videos. Copies of broadcasts made under the Screenrights licence can, however, be used.

How should material copied under these provisions be marked?

Copies made or communicated under these conditions should be marked as follows:

  • Made by Southern Cross University for the purposes of assisting a student with a print disability.
    [Date]

The copy should also include appropriate references. The Copyright Agency Limited has a register of master copies made by relevant organisations for the purposes of assisting people with disabilities.

There are also provisions for students with an intellectual disability. Please contact the Copyright Office if you have questions regarding these provisions or if you would like to access the register.

Your thesis will more than likely contain excerpts from other publications, such as diagrams, illustrations, quotations and maps that are used to support your arguments. You may also want to include audio visual materials such as clips from TV, CD or sound recordings. This is permissible under the research and study exception of the Copyright Act as long as you do not exceed the copying limits under the fair dealing provisions of the Act and as long as you acknowledge all your sources. Your use must be limited to research and study and you cannot use the materials for other purposes such as publication or performance.

Where you are required to make several copies of your thesis for assessment purposes you can rely on the research or study exception to reproduce the excerpts contained in your thesis. These excerpts are often referred to as third-party copyright material and permission from the copyright owner must be sought before any reproduction or communication outside of the research and study exception is conducted.

Placing a copy of your thesis on the internet is considered publishing your thesis and you will need to seek permission from the copyright owner for the use of any third-party materials in the online version of your thesis. If permission is not granted the material may be removed from the online version by Research Portal staff and replaced with the following statement.

e.g. Figure removed due to copyright restrictions.

It is mandatory that your higher degree thesis is submitted to the University's digital repository Southern Cross Research Portal and it is your responsibility to seek permission for the use of any third-party copyright material. Where permission has been denied or has not been sought the material may be removed from the online version.

The OAKLaw Project has published a very useful guide "Copyright Guide for Research Students: What you need to know about copyright before depositing your electronic thesis in an online repository".  OAKLaw Project May 2007. The guide contains sample letters and tips on seeking permission to publish your work.

When seeking permission from a copyright owner to use their material remember to:

  • put your request in writing - use our template letter (word doc)
  • check to see if the publisher has a website with an online permission form
  • state the amount of their work you wish to use
  • state clearly that you are seeking permission to use the work for non-commercial purposes - e.g. publication of your thesis on the internet
  • be aware that the copyright owner has the right to say 'no' and you must comply with this because the work is their property
  • a copyright owner may charge a fee, or ask you to sign a licence agreement
  • it may take months for the permission to be granted, so allow plenty of time.

In the past when an author signed a contract with a publisher, they assigned all their copyright to the publisher in return for publishing services and royalty payments. This occurred with the publication of journal articles even though royalties were usually not paid to authors.

While contract matters are personal decisions, you should be aware that assigning all your copyright to a publisher may prevent you from using your own work in particular ways, for example, some publisher agreements may not allow you to use your own work to create derivative works or upload your research output to an institutional repository.

Publishers' agreements are negotiable and you do not necessarily have to sign over all your copyright. For more information on this topic including tips on negotiating with publishers see Author Rights & the SPARC Author Addendum.

New models of scholarly communication and publication have emerged such as the Open Access movement which aims to increase the open availability of research publications and the Creative Commons movement with its range of licence templates which can be attached to electronic publications.

The copyright issues surrounding the material used to train Gen AI algorithms are significant due to a lack of transparency about the sources. These systems generate unique content from copyrighted works without proper permissions, raising concerns about copyright infringement, plagiarism, and academic integrity.

When an end user inputs a text prompt into a GenAI system, their original expression might qualify as a copyright-protected literary work, giving them rights to their prompt. However, this doesn't mean they own the copyright for the AI-generated output.

If pasting any third-party material into a GenAI system, you should ensure it is either suitably licensed or that you have obtained permission from the rights owner.

Please note:

  • University materials are considered third-party materials and require copyright clearance before they can be ingested into a GenAI tool.

Under Australian copyright law, a work will have copyright protection where it is:

  • an original work of the author, and
  • expressed in material form

Generally, under current Australian copyright law, a work that does not have a human author is not protected by copyright.

However, if creators using GenAI tools contribute "independent intellectual effort" to a work, it may qualify for copyright protection. The extent of contribution required is still uncertain. For instance, if a creator edits an image they produced using a GenAI tool, the human effort is likely sufficient for copyright. However, it's unclear if tasks like writing, tweaking and training the algorithm, or pre-selecting and editing GenAI output would qualify for copyright protection.

There is no legal requirement to acknowledge or reference GenAI outputs (other than for use in formal assessments). Nevertheless, it is recommended to attribute any use of GenAI to comply with academic standards and ensure transparency.

The following links are included here as a resource to help you find related information elsewhere in the SCU websites. Links to selected external websites have also been included.

Copyright Resources

Artistic Works

Films and Off-air Broadcast Information

Literary Works

Music