Archives: Guidelines

Updated 10 March 2022  

All TAFEs (excluding Victoria) can now rely on the TAFE Music Licence with APRA, AMCOS, ARIA and PPCA, which are the collecting societies that represent music composers and record labels.

TAFEs can perform musical works live (eg a live performance by a TAFE band) and use sound recordings in different ways outside the classroom environment, under the TAFE Music Licence. For example, TAFEs can:

• perform/play a musical work live at TAFE events (eg a TAFE band playing live at a TAFE Open Day)
• play a sound recording at TAFE events (eg use recorded music in a TAFE fashion show)
• play a sound recording as background music in TAFE businesses (eg TAFE training restaurants, fitness centres or cafes)
• play a sound recording as background music in TAFE workplaces (eg staff rooms, TAFE offices)
• make a sound recording to play at TAFE events (eg copy popular songs from a music streaming service to play at a TAFE graduation ceremony)
• incorporate a sound recording into another work (eg adding music to a PowerPoint presentation)
• live stream TAFE events at which a musical work is performed or sound recording played from a social media platform (eg Facebook Live and YouTube). TAFEs can rely on the licences that APRA AMCOS and record labels have with social media platforms to communicate (ie make available) the stream on the platform. However, it is still possible that the performance may be muted or blocked. This is addressed in more detail below.

Recording your TAFE event

TAFEs can record their events that include the performance of a musical work live or a sound recording. TAFEs can also authorise a third party (eg a professional videographer hired to film a TAFE fashion show or graduation ceremony) to make a recording of a TAFE event on its behalf, and use the recording in the ways listed below.

What can I do with the recording of our TAFE event?

TAFEs can do the following with the recording of their TAFE event(s):

• upload the recording to the TAFE website and/or DTE
• upload the recording to educational apps being used for TAFE communications (eg Skillslocker)
• email a digital copy of the recording to the TAFE community (students and parents or guardians)
• provide a physical copy to the TAFE community (for example, on a USB device)
• upload the recording to the TAFE’s official social media page (although where a musical work or sound recording is played at the TAFE event the post may still be taken down – see ‘Blocking or muting of events on social media’ below).

Using recorded music in videos or presentations

TAFEs can incorporate a sound recording, or a recording of a performance of a musical work (ie a recording of a TAFE band performing a piece of music) into another unrelated work. For example, they can add a backing track to a PowerPoint presentation or to a video of a graduation ceremony or fashion show. The TAFE can do the following with this new recording:

• upload the recording to the TAFE website, password protected intranet or password protected DTE
• email or provide a physical copy of the recording to students
• upload the recording to an educational app being used for TAFE communications (for example ‘SkillsLocker’).

Note, however, the TAFE cannot upload this work to social media.

Live streaming your TAFE event

TAFEs can live stream events, where a musical work is performed live and/or a sound recording is played, in real time from TAFE social media platforms (such as Facebook or YouTube). TAFEs can rely on the licences that APRA AMCOS and record labels have with social media platforms to communicate (ie make available) the stream on the platform.

If you are live streaming a performance where a musical work or sound recording is being played on social media, it is still possible that the performance may be taken down.

Blocking or muting of events on social media  

TAFEs can rely on the TAFE music licences to upload recordings of their TAFE event (including events where a sound recording is played) to the TAFE’s official social media platforms such as Facebook and YouTube. In order to communicate (ie make available) those recordings from those social media pages, TAFEs  can rely on licences that APRA AMCOS and ARIA have with social media platforms.

Music recording companies (ie record labels) and some music publishers use software to identify potentially infringing content on social media platforms such as Facebook.

When a TAFE institute live streams a performance where a musical work or sound recording is played, this software may alert Facebook or other social media platforms to mute the recording or send a takedown notice to the TAFE institute. If you are concerned about a live stream or recording being muted or your TAFE being issued with a takedown notice, contact the National Copyright Unit. Alternatively, you may want to consider uploading the recording to your TAFE website or password protected intranet.

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Updated 7 April 2022

Schools have entered into a Schools Music Licence, which allows schools to copy and share musical works and sound recordings in certain circumstances. All government and most Catholic and independent schools, are covered by the Schools Music Licence. You can check whether you are covered by the music agreements by contacting your school authority.

Performing musical works live or playing sound recordings

The Schools Music Licence, together with an exception under section 106(1)(b) of the Copyright Act and an interim agreement with PPCA, allow schools to perform musical works live and play sound recordings for a range of purposes that a school undertakes as part of its usual activities (eg providing educational or religious services for staff, students and members of the school community as part of normal school activities, engaging with members of the school community, promoting students work and school events such as school concerts, dances or formals, sports days and fairs).

Schools can charge admission fees to performances of music as long as the proceeds from the fees mostly go to the school or a registered charity.

Schools can perform some songs from a musical, but, to perform an entire musical, schools cannot rely on the Schools Music Licence and will need to obtain permission from the copyright owner of the musical.

If a secondary school is performing music in a dramatic context (eg a performance where there is a storyline, characters or a ballet) it cannot charge admission and advertise the event outside the school community.

The licence does not allow schools to perform musical works and play sound recordings for commercial activities.

Copying sheet music

The Schools Music Licence allows schools to make multiple copies of sheet music for educational purposes, including delivering school music lessons and ensemble programs, provided they do not make more copies than reasonably required for the relevant school purpose. The licence tops up the rights that schools have to copy sheet music under the Statutory Text and Artistic Works Licence.

Under the Schools Music Licence, schools can:

• photocopy hardcopy sheet music
• make digital copies of print sheet music (ie scan to digital format)
• print copies of digital sheet music
• email PDF versions of digital sheet music
• upload copies of sheet music to a password protected or restricted access DTE.

Schools should not undertake ‘just-in-case’ copying, such as digitising entire collections of print sheet music.

Schools can make as many copies of print or digital sheet music that the school considers is reasonably required for a relevant school purpose. However, the copies must be made from an original copy of the sheet music that the school or a teacher at the school owns. What this means is that the school first needs to purchase of a copy of the sheet music from an authorised publisher before they make any copies.

There are some other limits on the copies of sheet music that Schools can make under the School Music Licence. For example, a school:

• can only copy up to three songs from a Grand Right Work (eg words and music that has been written expressly for an opera, operetta, musical play, revue or pantomime), but it can make as many copies as it needs of the sheet music for each of those three songs. So, it could make copies of the sheet music for three songs from ‘Matilda the Musical’ for its students to sing. However, if a school wants to rehearse or perform an entire musical, it needs to obtain permission from the copyright owner of the musical
• can only copy a choral work that is longer than 20 minutes where the public performance of the choral work is validly licensed (e.g. the School has a obtained a licence to perform the choral work)
• cannot make copies of sheet music for students’ private music tuition.
• cannot make copies of sheet music where the lyrics have been changed or the music has been adapted.

The Schools Music Licence also extends to departments and administrative bodies making copies of sheet music in order to:

• deliver music lessons to students on behalf of a school (provided such lessons do not constitute private tuition)
• for use in ensemble programs that are organised by the administrative body or department and connected with the school.

The department or administrative body may only make copies of an original version of the sheet music (i.e. an original published copy of the sheet music owned by the administrative body on behalf of each school for which it is making copies).

Marking hardcopy and digital copies of sheet music

Under the Schools Music Licence, schools must do all they reasonably can to mark all hardcopy and digital copies of sheet music they make with the words “AMCOS LICENSED COPY”  and the following information:

• name of the school
• date copied
• the name of the owner of the original sheet music that was copied (e.g. if the school bought the original, the school or if it was a teacher, the teacher).

Live streaming school events

Schools can live stream their school event, where musical works are performed (eg a live performance of a song by a school band or orchestra) and/or a sound recording is played, in real time from the school website, a social media platform (eg Facebook Live, YouTube) or a video conferencing platform (eg Zoom). In the case of social media platforms, schools can rely on the licences that APRA AMCOS and record labels have with the social medial platforms to communicate (ie make available) the stream on the platform.

If you are live streaming a performance where a musical work or sound recording is being played on social media, it is possible that the performance may be muted or blocked by the social media platform. For what to do if this happens, see ‘Blocking or muting of event on social media’ below.

Making audio or video recordings of school events

Under the Schools Music Licence, schools are able to make audio visual or audio only recordings of school events at which musical works are performed or  sound recordings are played.

All school event recordings which include music made by the school should display the following notice:

‘This recording has been made under a licence from AMCOS and ARIA for school purposes only’.

Schools can also authorise members of the school community (or a third party such as a commercial videographer), to make recordings of music performed at school events, provided this is either for the exclusive use of the school, or for private and domestic listening or viewing by members of the school community (eg parents, guardians and friends can make a video of a presentation night at which the school band played, or a videographer could make a recording for the school to use later in an end-of-year presentation).

Uploading recordings of school events, where a musical work or sound recording is being played, to social media

Schools can rely on the Schools Music Licence to upload recordings of their school events to the school’s official social media page on platforms such as Facebook and YouTube. In order to communicate (ie make available online) those recordings from those social media pages, schools can rely on the licences that APRA AMCOS and record labels have with the social media platforms.

Schools can also upload videos and presentations, or audio only recordings, of someone performing a musical work (not a sound recording), to the school’s official social media page on platforms such as Facebook and YouTube (e.g. a video of a student performing music or singing a song in class). If the video, presentation or audio only recording contains a sound recording, it must not be uploaded to social media (e.g. a video in which a recording downloaded from Spotify or YouTube is playing cannot be uploaded to social media).

Where Schools upload recordings to social media the post may still be muted by the social media platform, or the school may be asked to take it down.

Blocking or muting of events on social media

Music recording companies (ie record labels) and some music publishers use software to identify potentially infringing content on social media platforms, such as Facebook. When a school live streams a performance where a musical work or sound recording is being played, or uploads a recording of a school event where a musical work or sound recording is played, this software may alert Facebook or other social media platforms to mute the recording or send a takedown notice to the school. If you are concerned about a live stream or recording being muted or your school being issued with a take-down notice, contact the National Copyright Unit. Alternatively, you may want to consider uploading the recording to your school website or password protected digital teaching environment or intranet.

What else can be done with audio or video recordings of school events

Schools can also do the following with their recordings of school event(s):

• upload the recording to the school website
• upload the recordings to a password protected school server, intranet or DTE and make this available to parents, guardians and students. For example, if parents and guardians are unable to attend an assembly or graduation day, the school could send them a link to the recording on the school’s password protected intranet and allow them to download a copy for their private use
• upload the recording to an app that is being used by the school for internal school communications to members of the school community, such as Schoolbag, Seesaw, Compass and SZapp. This is limited to apps being used by the school for internal school communications, and would not include apps like Snapchat or TikTok
• email/message a copy or make a physical copy of the recording (eg copy it on to a USB) and distribute it (for a no cost or on a cost-recovery basis) to members of the school community (eg students and parents or guardians)
• provide a digital or physical copy of the recording to:
  • members of the school community (e.g. parents, guardians and staff)
  • other third parties, including other schools and administering bodies, to facilitate entry to events such as music competitions and festivals by students representing the school.
• stream a live communication of the school event from the school’s website.

Making audio or video recordings that are not of school events

 As well as recording school events at which musical works are performed or sound recordings are played, schools are also able to make recordings that are not of school events as long as they are being made for school purposes. Schools can:

• make videos or presentations (e.g. classroom PowerPoint slides, presentations for assemblies or functions or end of year videos) in which musical works or sound recordings are playing in the background
• record someone playing a musical work (eg record a student playing the violin)
• copy sound recordings (eg download tracks from a streaming services, such as Spotify, or format shift a CD to MP3):
  • for the educational purposes of the school (e.g. to play in class relevant to material being studied, whether face-to-face or virtual) – this doesn’t extend to ‘just-in-case’ format shifting of whole CD collections
  • to use at a school event (eg to play at a school graduation); or
  • to include in another work, such as a video or presentation (e.g. to add as a soundtrack to a PowerPoint presentation or a commemorative video).

Schools should not undertake ‘just-in-case’ copying, such as format shifting entire CD collections.

All recordings and videos and presentations, which include music, made by the school should display the following notice:

‘This recording has been made under a licence from AMCOS and ARIA for school purposes only’.

What can schools do with audio or video recordings that are not of school events

Schools can do the following with:

(i) recordings of musical works (e.g. a recording of a student performing a musical work in class)

(ii) videos and presentations that include musical works (eg a PowerPoint presentation to which a recording of the school choir has been added)

that are not of school events, provided that what is being done is for a school purpose:

• upload them to the school website, password protected intranet or password protected DTE
• upload them to the school’s official social media page on platforms such as Facebook and YouTube
• email and/or message them to students and parents or guardians (the school community)
• upload them to an educational app that is being used by the school to communicate with the school community (ie Schoolbag, Seesaw, Compass and SZapp, but excluding apps like Snapchat and TikTok).

Schools can only upload sound recordings (eg a track the school has downloaded from a streaming service or a CD that the school has digitised) to an intranet, DTE, educational App, video conferencing application or school website where it is password protected and only made available to members of the school community.

Schools can only do the following with videos and presentations that are not of school events and which contain sound recordings (eg a video of the school athletics carnival highlights to which a Spotify track has been added as a soundtrack), provided that what is being done is for a school purpose:

• upload the recording to the school website, password protected intranet or password protected DTE
• email and/or message the recording to students and parents or guardians (the school community)
• upload the recording to an educational app that is being used by the school to communicate with the school community (ie Schoolbag, Seesaw, Compass and SZapp, but excluding apps like Snapchat and TikTok).

Sale of recordings made by schools

Schools may sell any of the recordings they make:

• to another school, provided that the sale price is no more than needed to cover the costs of creating the recording.
• to members of the school community for their private and domestic listening and/or viewing, provided the sale price is no more than what is needed to cover the costs of creating the recording, including, any costs staging a school event comprised in the recording (i.e. a school could sell recordings of a school event to recoup some of the costs in staging the school event but cannot sell the recordings in order to make a profit).

Summary of how schools can share recordings

This table summarises how schools are permitted to share live streams of school events, school event recordings, videos or presentations that include music and audio-only recordings under the Schools Music Licence.

Activity		Email or message	Password protected DTE	School website or educational app	Social media
Live stream of school event
Recording of school event (audio or audio-visual)
Video or presentation	to which a recording of a musical work has been added (eg school makes its own recording
	to which a sound recording has been added
Recordings for school purposes that are not of a school event	of a musical work
	of a sound recording

 

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Text, Artistic Works and Broadcast Notice

[WARNING]

This material has been copied [and communicated to you] in accordance with the statutory licence in section 113P of the Copyright 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

Intranet/LMS Notice

[WARNING]

Some of this material may have been copied [and communicated to you] in accordance with the statutory licence in section 113P of the Copyright 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.

 

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School and TAFE libraries must ensure that they display copyright warning notices near machines that can be used to copy text and artistic works (eg photocopy machines, printers and scanners) and/or machines that can be used to copy audio-visual content.

The form of these notices – which are contained in the Copyright Regulations – are set out below. There are 3 options to choose from:

Option 1: this is the best option if the copying machine/s in your library can be used to copy text and artistic works only (ie the machine/s cannot be used to copy audio-visual items)

Option 2: this is the best option if the copying machine/s in your library can be used to copy audio-visual items only (ie the machine/s cannot be used to copy works)

Option 3: this is a combined notice, and is the best option if the copying machine/s in your library can be used to copy works and audio-visual items. It can also be used when your library has both types of copying machine in close proximity (ie to avoid the need to display two notices).

The notice must be at least 297 mm long and 201 mm wide (ie A4 paper size), and it must be displayed to, or in close proximity, to the copying machine in a place readily visible to anyone using the machine. The question of how close the notices need to be in order to satisfy this requirement will depend to a large extent on how legible/prominent the notice is to a person using the relevant machine.

The reason that these notices are so important is that displaying them can protect the school or TAFE from being liable for copyright infringements by students who use the machines.

Option 1: Form of notice to use if the copying machine can be used to copy works only (ie the machine cannot be used to copy audio-visual items)

Commonwealth of Australia Copyright Act 1968 Notice about the reproduction of works and the copying of published editions Warning Copyright owners are entitled to take legal action against persons who infringe their copyright. A reproduction of material that is protected by copyright may be a copyright infringement. Certain dealings with copyright will not constitute an infringement, including: (a) a reproduction that is a fair dealing under the Copyright Act 1968 (the Act), including a fair dealing for the purposes of research or study; or (b) a reproduction that is authorised by the copyright owner. It is a fair dealing to make a reproduction for research or study, of one or more articles in a periodical publication for the same research or same course of study or, for any other work, of a reasonable portion of a work. For a published work in hardcopy form that is not less than 10 pages and is not an artistic work, 10% of the number of pages, or one chapter, is a reasonable portion. For a published work in electronic form only, a reasonable portion is not more than, in the aggregate, 10% of the number of words in the work. More extensive reproduction may constitute fair dealing. To determine whether it does, it is necessary to have regard to the criteria set out in subsection 40(2) of the Act. A court may impose penalties and award damages in relation to offences and infringements relating to copyright material. Higher penalties may apply, and higher damages may be awarded, for offences and infringements involving the conversion of material into digital or electronic form.

Option 2: Form of notice to use if the copying machine can be used to copy audio-visual items only (ie the machine cannot be used to copy works)

Commonwealth of Australia Copyright Act 1968 Notice about the copying of audio‑visual items Warning Copyright owners are entitled to take legal action against persons who infringe their copyright. Unless otherwise permitted by the Copyright Act 1968 (the Act), unauthorised use of audio‑visual items in which copyright subsists may infringe copyright in that item. It is not an infringement of copyright in an audio‑visual item to use that item in a manner that is a fair dealing under section 103C of the Act. Section 103C of the Act relates to fair dealing for the purpose of research or study and sets out the matters that must be considered in determining whether a reproduction of an audio‑visual item is a fair dealing. A court may impose penalties and award damages in relation to offences and infringements relating to copyright material. Higher penalties may apply, and higher damages may be awarded, for offences and infringements involving the conversion of material into digital or electronic form.

Option 3: Form of combined notice that can be used if the copying machine can be used to copy works and audio-visual items, or if both types of machines are in close proximity

Commonwealth of Australia Copyright Act 1968 Notice about the reproduction of works and the copying of published editions and audio‑visual items Warning Copyright owners are entitled to take legal action against persons who infringe their copyright. A court may impose penalties and award damages in relation to offences and infringements relating to copyright material. Higher penalties may apply, and higher damages may be awarded, for offences and infringements involving the conversion of material into digital or electronic form. Reproduction of works and copying of published editions A reproduction of material that is protected by copyright may be a copyright infringement. Certain dealings with copyright will not constitute an infringement, including: (a) a reproduction that is a fair dealing under the Copyright Act 1968 (the Act), including a fair dealing for the purposes of research or study; or (b) a reproduction that is authorised by the copyright owner. It is a fair dealing to make a reproduction for research or study, of one or more articles in a periodical publication for the same research or same course of study or, for any other work, of a reasonable portion of a work. For a published work in hardcopy form that is not less than 10 pages and is not an artistic work, 10% of the number of pages, or one chapter, is a reasonable portion. For a published work in electronic form only, a reasonable portion is not more than, in the aggregate, 10% of the number of words in the work. More extensive reproduction may constitute fair dealing. To determine whether it does, it is necessary to have regard to the criteria set out in subsection 40(2) of the Act. Copying of audio‑visual items Unless otherwise permitted by the Act, unauthorised use of audio‑visual items in which copyright subsists may infringe copyright in that item. It is not an infringement of copyright in an audio‑visual item to use that item in a manner that is a fair dealing under section 103C of the Act. Section 103C of the Act relates to fair dealing for the purpose of research or study and sets out the matters that must be considered in determining whether a reproduction of an audio‑visual item is a fair dealing.

 

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ICIPR is a reference to Indigenous Peoples’ rights to their heritage and culture. Indigenous People’s heritage is a living heritage and is passed down from generation to generation. Usually particular objects, sites and knowledge pertain to a particular Indigenous group or territory.

Heritage includes all aspects of cultural practices, traditional knowledge, resources and knowledge systems developed by Indigenous people as part of their Indigenous identity. ICIP rights also cover:

• literary, performing and artistic works
• languages
• types of knowledge, including spiritual knowledge
• tangible and intangible cultural property
• Indigenous ancestral remains and genetic material
• cultural environmental resources
• sites of Indigenous significance and
• documentation of Indigenous heritage.

What is ICIPR?

Essentially, ICIPR are a bundle of rights of Indigenous Peoples which protect the right to:

• own and control ICIPR
• commercialise ICIPR in accordance with traditional laws and customary obligations
• benefit commercially from the authorised use of ICIPR
• enjoy full and proper attribution and
• protect significant and sacred materials.

How is ICIPR protected in Australia?

There is no specific legislation in Australia that recognises ICIPR. ICIPR may be protected by copyright, trade marks, confidential information, passing off and trade practices law. However, this piecemeal protection is fragmented and limited.

For example, copyright can only provide limited protection of ICIPR because:

• the material form requirement is not always met where the stories and songs have been passed orally from generation to generation (see Who owns Indigenous languages? Indigenous Language Materials and Copyright)
• the period of copyright protection is finite and is unable to protect traditional art which has been passed through generations and
• copyright is generally granted to the author and does not recognise communal or customary ownership of cultural heritage of Indigenous tribes and clans.

Increasingly Indigenous communities are using non legislative means such as contract and protocols to protect their ICIPR.

Dealing with ICIPR

The best non-legislative means of dealing with ICIPR is to develop an organisational cultural protocol. A protocol may include guidelines on procedure, a code of behaviour or a set of rules on how to recognise and deal with ICIPR. For more information see Why Cultural Institutions need an ICIP Protocol.

The development and use of protocols is becoming common practice in government and the corporate sector. Following are some principles, as set out in Protocols for using First Nations Cultural and Intellectual Property in the Arts, to consider when implementing arts protocols.

Principles

• Respect
• Indigenous control
• Communication, consultation and consent
• Interpretation, integrity and authenticity
• Secrecy and confidentiality
• Attribution and copyright
• Proper returns and royalties
• Continuing cultures
• Recognition and protection

ICIPR Checklist

The following questions are intended as a guide to assist educational institutions in negotiations and consultations with Aboriginal communities.

• Does your nominated Aboriginal community representative have the authority to speak for or on behalf of the proposed project?
• Have you received written consent from the traditional owners/custodians of ICIPR for the project?
• Does the community understand the aims, objectives and methodology of the project?
• Does the community understand how the outcomes of the project will be used?
• Have you made arrangements with the community to provide feedback on the project at all stages?
• Have you acted in good faith and respected the privacy of Aboriginal Peoples and communities?
• Have you ensured that the community understands the copyright issues of the project?
• Does your proposal safeguard Aboriginal sensibilities?

See Indigenous Knowledge: Issues for protection and management and Protocols for using First Nations Cultural and Intellectual Property in the Arts.

For additional resources see Terri Janke and Company website.

 

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Performers’ consent

Updated 23 February 2022

Performers have limited rights to:

• authorise the recording of their live performance and
• prevent certain uses of recordings of their live performance.

Generally a performer’s consent is required before a recording of a performance is made, however schools and TAFEs won’t need performers’ consent where the performance is being done for the purposes of educational instruction.

Performers’ copyright in sound recordings

From 1 January 2005, performers have been granted some copyright in sound recordings of their performances. Previously the record company (or other commissioning party) was the sole owner of copyright. Now the performer and the owner become co-owners for equal shares in the copyright.

The rights came into force as at 1 January 2005 and apply to all recordings still in copyright.

Ordinarily, schools will be covered by the Schools Music Licence for the use of sound recordings. However, where the school intends to use a sound recording of a performance outside the Schools Music Licence, it must make sure it has the consent and clearance of all performers. For sound recordings, a performer is any person who can be heard in the recording.

Performers’ moral rights

Performers also have moral rights in their performance. These rights are in addition to performers’ copyright. They include the rights:

• to be attributed
• not to be falsely attributed and
• of integrity against derogatory treatment of the performance in a way that prejudices the reputation of the performer.

This means any recording made should credit the performers.

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What are moral rights?

Moral Rights are personal rights granted to authors of literary, dramatic, musical and artistic works and films.

Moral rights are:

• • the right of attribution of authorship. The author has the right to be identified as the author of the work or film when it is presented to the public. The attribution must be reasonably clear and prominent.
  • the rights against false attribution of authorship. The author has the right not to have their work attributed falsely to someone else and not to have an altered work being attributed as unaltered.
  • the right of integrity of authorship. The author has the right to have the integrity of their work respected and not subjected to derogatory treatment. A treatment is derogatory if it in some way prejudicially affects the honour or reputation of the author.

Who has moral rights?

Moral rights are granted to authors of:

• • literary, dramatic, musical and artistic works and
  • films.

Dealing with moral rights

In order to avoid moral rights infringements, educational institutions should:

• • attribute the author of the work or film where reasonable. For example, crediting the name of the author and title of the work on material that is reproduced or communicated to the public
  • attribute authors of musical and dramatic works where the works are performed at concerts and other performances either in the program or by announcement
  • not alter, add to, crop, edit, change, distort or mutilate the work or film of the author unless it is reasonable in the circumstances and
  •  obtain a written consent to such acts or omissions that would otherwise infringe the author’s moral rights. Consents should be addressed in all contracts that deal with copyright material such as commission or freelance agreements, employment agreements and licence agreements.

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TPMs are technological protection measures placed on copyright material to prevent unauthorised copying. Examples include software locks or password protection measures. There are two types of technologies protected by the Copyright Act:

• Access Control TPMs – technologies that copyright owners use to control access to copyright material (such as a password control or technology that manages how long you have access to an electronic file).
• Copy Control TPMs  – technologies that prevent, restrict or inhibit you from doing an act that is covered by copyright laws (such as a lock that stops you from copying software to a different computer or a copy-prevention measure on a music CD).

Schools and TAFEs are permitted to circumvent:

• Copy Control TPMs and
• Access Control TPMs for the following purposes:
  • making a copy under the Statutory Text and Artistic Works Licence or the Statutory Broadcast licence
  • making a copy under the flexible dealing exception in s 200AB of the Copyright Act
  • making a copy under the organisational disability exception in s 113F of the Copyright Act or
  • making a copy under the fair dealing for disability exception in s 113E of the Copyright Act.

Schools and TAFEs are not permitted to circumvent an Access Control TPM for any other purpose (eg a teacher or student making a copy for their own fair dealing purposes).

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Who is liable?

These people may be liable for copyright infringement where they do not have the copyright owner’s permission or the benefit of an exception or statutory licence under the Copyright Act 1968 (Act):

• the student/teacher doing the actual copying or communication or public performance of the copyright work.
• the school/TAFE who is said to have authorised the infringement by the student/teacher.

Note: Schools/TAFE institutes may not be liable for photocopying done by students if they display the required copyright notice near copying equipment (eg photocopiers, scanners, CD and DVD burners). This will help to avoid liability for authorising infringements by people using their equipment where the fair dealing exceptions do not apply.

• the employer (for example, the Department of Education) of a teacher who infringes copyright in the performance of their teaching duties.

Authorising copyright infringements

It is an infringement of copyright to authorise the doing of an act by a third person which infringes copyright. This means that schools and TAFE institutes (and possibly Education Departments, Catholic Education Offices or Associations of Independent Schools) could sometimes be liable for copyright infringement done by their students/teachers by authorising their students/teachers to do those acts.

When deciding whether a school/TAFE has authorised a copyright infringement, some of the things a court will consider include the nature of the relationship existing between the school/TAFE and the teacher/student, the power of the school/TAFE to prevent the infringement, whether the school/TAFE had knowledge of the infringements and whether the school/TAFE took any steps to stop potential infringements from occurring.

It follows that, schools and TAFE institutes should take care not to:

• provide links on school/TAFE intranets to content that is known or likely to be infringing
• allow or ask students to download content from sites where the content is likely to be unauthorised
• allow or ask students to copy copyright content unless it is clearly for their own research or study purposes or
• store content on the intranet or learning management systems such as Clickview unless it is licensed or covered by a copyright exception.

Safe harbours

The Act contains a ‘safe harbour’ scheme (Part V Division 2AA of the Act). This scheme provides legal protection to schools and TAFEs in certain circumstances for copyright infringements committed by users of their IT systems and services.  The scheme does not protect departments or administrative bodies.

The Safe Harbour scheme ensures that schools and TAFE institutes are not exposed to unnecessary legal risk by providing Australian students with the tools to ensure they are fully equipped for the demands of an innovative digital workforce. As long as a school or TAFE follows the rules set out in the system, they can receive legal protection under the safe harbour scheme.

See Safe Harbours.

Civil Remedies for copyright infringement

The remedies available to a copyright owner for copyright infringement include:

• damages (monetary compensation for loss)
• additional damages (where the infringement has been flagrant)
• an account of profits (compensation based on profit)
• an injunction (a court order which prevents the infringer from further infringing) and
• delivery up (delivery up of any infringing articles or plates used to make the infringing articles).

Criminal offences and penalties for copyright infringement

Copyright infringements which involve commercial dealings may also be criminal offences. For example, it is an offence to:

• make an infringing copy of a work or audio-visual material for sale or hire, sell or hire an infringing copy or
• distribute an infringing copy with the intention of obtaining a commercial advantage or profit.

A person found guilty of a criminal offence may be fined up to $93,500 and/or imprisoned for up to 5 years. Corporations may be fined up to five times the amount of maximum fines.

Offences relating to copyright protection technologies

The Copyright Act provides civil and criminal actions and remedies against:

• actions in relation to technological protection measures (TPMs)
• removal and alteration of Rights Management Information (RMI) and
• unauthorised access to subscription television.

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Copyright will be infringed where you use material (ie you exercise one of the exclusive rights of the copyright owner) in way that is not permitted by a statutory or voluntary licence, one of the copyright exceptions or without the permission of the owner. Most teaching activities will be covered by a licence with a collecting society or a copyright exception.

A copy does not need to be exact or identical to be an infringement. For example making a three dimensional copy of a two dimensional artistic work or vice versa will be a copyright infringement. Copying a significant extract of a copyright work will also be an infringement.

Copyright may also be infringed by a person who authorises someone else to do an act covered by copyright without permission. This means that the copyright owner may sue both the person who authorises, as well as the person who did, the infringing act. This means that school can be liable for acts done by their students, if they authorised the activity.

 

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The Copyright Act provides a series of exceptions which allow schools and TAFE institutes to use copyright material without permission:

Fair dealing

Teachers and students can copy and communicate limited amounts of works under “fair dealing”. No permission is required or payment made to the copyright owner if the use is fair and for the purpose of:

• research or study
• criticism or review
• reporting the news or
• parody or satire.

If a work is protected by a technological protection measure, you may not be able to use the fair dealing exceptions.

Research or study

In general, students and teachers can rely on fair dealing when using extracts from copyright material as part of their own research or study for a class or particular course of instruction. The person undertaking the study and research (for example, the school student) must be the person doing the copying for it to be considered a “fair dealing”.

A student/teacher may copy and communicate parts, and in some cases the whole, of a:

• literary, dramatic, musical or artistic work
• radio or television broadcast
• film, video /DVD
• sound recording
• multimedia product
• computer program and
• database,

for free for the purposes of research or study. Teachers/students are allowed to copy as a fair dealing for research or study:

• a ‘reasonable portion’ of a published edition of a literary, dramatic or musical work,
• whole or part of an article in a periodical or
• more than one article in a periodical if you are copying it for different research or a different course of study.

Teachers/students may copy or communicate more than a reasonable portion of a literary, musical or dramatic work or more than one article for the same research if this is fair.

You can decide if your copying or communication is fair by considering the following factors:

• the purpose and character of the dealing
• the nature of the work
• the possibility of obtaining the work within a reasonable time at an ordinary commercial price
• the effect of the dealing upon the potential market for, or value of the work or
• in the case where only the part of the work is copied – the amount and substantiality of the part copied in relation to the whole work.

Teachers may not use fair dealing to make multiple copies of material for their students’ research or study. This is covered by the Statutory Licence schemes.

Criticism or review

A student/teacher may copy or communicate parts of a literary, dramatic, musical and artistic work for the purpose of criticism and review (eg where a student or teacher is reviewing a book, CD or film for a student newspaper, teacher’s journal or a website).

Sufficient acknowledgment must be made of the source material, the copyright owner, the author (if different) and the title of the work being copied (if different from the copyright owner).

The same exception applies for audio-visual material (sound recordings, films and broadcasts).

Reporting the news

A student/teacher may copy or communicate parts of a literary, dramatic, musical and artistic work for the purpose of reporting news that appears in the print, radio or television media.

Sufficient acknowledgment must be made of the copyright owner and the author of the work.

The same exception applies for the use of audio-visual material (sound recordings, films and broadcasts) featured in the news.

Parody or satire

A student/teacher may copy or communicate parts of a work or audio-visual material for the purposes of parody or satire.

Parody is defined as a humorous or satirical imitation of a serious work, a caricature, or a poor imitation of something designed to ridicule it (eg a ‘take off’).

Satire means the use of irony, sarcasm or ridicule in exposing vice or folly.

An example of parody might be students re-working a television advertisement to ridicule it. An example of satire might be students using part of a television advertisement in a PowerPoint presentation to make a satirical point about an issue related to the advertisement (eg using a fast food commercial to make a satirical point about childhood obesity levels).

Flexible dealing

The flexible dealing exception allows teachers to use copyright material in limited circumstances for the purposes of educational instruction. Teachers are not allowed to use this exception if another exception or statutory licence applies (eg if the teacher is already allowed to make a copy of a text or artistic work under the Statutory Text and Artistic Works Licence).

For further information, see Flexible Dealing.

Disability Access Exceptions

The Copyright Act contains two non-remunerable disability copying exceptions:

(i)                use of copyright material by organisations assisting persons with a disability and

(ii)               fair dealing for the purpose of assisting persons with a disability.

Both of these exceptions can be used by schools and TAFE to assist students with a disability, but the circumstances in which they apply differ.

For further information, see Disability Access Exceptions.

Library copying

There are a number of copying exceptions that apply to copying by libraries. These include making:

(i)               copies of content for the purpose of preserving the content

(ii)              copies of content for the purpose of research carried out by the library

(iii)             supplying copies of content at the request of a student for that student’s research and study and

(iv)             copies of content at the request of another library.

For further information, see Library Copying.

Educational exceptions

There are a number of exceptions where no payment is required for educational use of copyright material:

Performing copyright works and playing films and sound recordings in class

Students/teachers can read or perform a literary, dramatic or musical work and play sound recordings and films in class, where it is done:

• in the course of education and is not for profit and
• the people in the audience or class are giving or receiving instruction or are directly connected with the place where instruction is given.

The class may be a ‘virtual’ class, where class content is delivered (eg using virtual classroom software or Zoom) to students who are learning remotely.

This does not include performances to parents, school excursions or for fundraising activities.

Communication of copyright works, films and sound recordings to a class

Schools/TAFE institutes can now communicate all works and audio-visual material to classrooms to enable classroom performance using new technologies.

Some of the things you are allowed to do are to:

• use an electronic delivery system to transmit a television program or film from a central DVD player in the library to a monitor in the classroom
• use virtual classroom software to show copyright materials, such as films, to external students
• recite a poem to students in a virtual class over Skype, Google Hangouts or other online communication platforms
• play a film from a DTE (eg ClickView) in class
• make a film available via a DTE for access by distance education students for the purpose of a particular class and
• display or project material to a class, such as a poem, on an electronic whiteboard, flat panel or data projector.

This exception does not cover placing content onto DTE unless it is for the purpose of showing that material in class. We recommend that such material is removed at the end of the lesson or not longer than 14 days after the classroom use.

Copying by hand

A teacher or student may copy an artistic, dramatic, musical and literary work by hand for instructional purposes or use in the classroom. This exception applies to copying a work onto a:

• piece of paper
• white board
• blackboard or
• overhead transparency.

There are no limits on how much may be copied, adapted, translated or arranged by hand.

Examples of works copied by hand include:

• diagrams or plans
• poems or
• musical notation and lyrics.

Copying for exams

Schools and TAFE institutes may copy any kind of copyright material including artistic, dramatic, musical, sound recordings, broadcasts, film or literary works in exam papers for free and do not need to seek the copyright owner’s permission. This includes exams and assessments conducted online. It does not apply to practice exams.

Playing sound recordings in public

Schools are permitted to play sound recordings in public. For independent and Catholic schools, this is under s 106 of the Copyright Act. For government schools, it is under an interim licence from PPCA, which is in effect until 31 December 2020.

Other exceptions

There are other exceptions where no payment is required for educational use of copyright material:

Artistic works

There are special exceptions in relation to artistic works.

a.       Works in public places

Copyright in a sculpture, craft work or building (and models of buildings) displayed permanently outdoors or in a place or building open to the public is not infringed by students or staff making a painting or photograph of it.

b.       Incidental use on television

The use of an artwork in the background of a film or television program filmed by students and staff will not infringe copyright in the artwork, provided the use is incidental and does not form part of the main action being presented.

Computer Programs

Schools and TAFE institutes may make back-up copies of computer programs.

 

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Updated 16 March 2022

The Copyright Act sets out two licences that govern the copying and communication of copyright works by schools and TAFE, the Statutory Text and Artistic Works Licence and the Statutory Broadcast Licence.

Educational institutions can also enter voluntary licences with the various collecting societies, who collect royalties on behalf of their copyright owner members. Schools have entered into a voluntary licence with the music collecting societies, APRA AMCOS and ARIA.

The statutory and voluntary licences are administered by collecting societies on behalf of copyright owners.

For more information see Educational Licences.

 

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a.     Assignments

Assignment clauses are common in independent contractor agreements, especially where the contractor is creating copyright material to be used by the commissioner. Copyright ownership can be assigned to another or left to beneficiaries in a will.

b.     Licences/permissions

Copyright can also be licensed. A licence is a form of permission. This means the copyright owner allows another person (or TAFE, for example) to use or reproduce the copyright work.

For sample permission requests see Permissions.

 

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Under the Copyright Act, the owner has certain exclusive rights to control the use of their copyright material. The rights differ according to the type of work protected. Note that for schools and TAFE many of these activities are covered by a statutory or voluntary licence or a copyright exception.

a.     Literary, dramatic and musical works

The copyright owner has the right to:

• • copy the work in material form (eg print or download the work)
  • publish the work (supply copies to the public)
  • communicate the work to the public (eg by email or upload to school DTE)
  • perform the work in public and
  • make an adaptation of the work (eg writing a screenplay based on a novel, or a new arrangement of a song).

b.     Artistic works

The copyright owner has the right to:

• • copy the work in material form (eg print or download the work)
  • publish the work (eg reproduce in a pamphlet) and
  • communicate the work to the public (by email, posting it on a school DTE or website).

c.     Films

The copyright owner has the right to:

• • make a copy of the film (eg convert a DVD to a digital version)
  • show the film to the public (eg to show the film at a school fundraiser) and
  • communicate the film to the public (eg upload the film to a TAFE website).

d.     Sound Recordings

The copyright owner has the right to:

• • make a copy of the sound recording (eg make a compilation of digital recordings)
  • play the recording in public (eg to play the recording in a TAFE restaurant as background music) and
  • communicate the recording to the public (eg upload to a school DTE).

e.     Broadcasts

The copyright owner has the right to:

• • make a recording of the broadcast
  • re-broadcast the broadcast and
  • communicate the broadcast to the public.

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Updated 14 February 2023

Copyright protection applies for a finite period of time. This period varies, depending on the type of subject matter and when it was created.

On 1 January 2019 the duration of copyright protection in Australia was standardised. This means that, in general, all literary, dramatic, musical and artistic works now have a standard term of protection: the life of the author plus 70 years, regardless of whether the material has been made public (previously unpublished works were protected for an indefinite time).

For works where the author is unknown as well as sound and film recordings, copyright will now last for 70 years after creation, unless those materials are made public within 50 years of creation, in which case copyright will subsist for 70 years after being made public (previously copyright lasted for 70 years from the year of first publication).

For published editions, copyright will last 25 years after the expiration of the calendar year in which the edition was first published.

On 1 January 2005 the duration of copyright changed. The tables below set out the current and pre-1 January 2005 term of copyright protection.

Current term of copyright protection

a. Works

Types of Copyright Material	Current Term
Literary works (including unpublished works)	Lifetime of author plus 70 years
Artistic works (including unpublished works)	Lifetime of author plus 70 years
Dramatic works	Lifetime of author plus 70 years
Musical works	Lifetime of author plus 70 years

b. Works – exceptions

Types of Copyright Material	Current Term
Works first made public before 1 January 2019
Where the author was known but has died and the work was made public after the author died	70 years after the calendar year in which the work was first made public
Where the identity of the author of the work is not generally known at any time before the end of the 70 years after the calendar year in which the work was first made public	70 years after the calendar year in which the work was first made public
Works not first made public before 1 January 2019
Pseudonyms and anonymous names	70 years after creation or the work was made public , unless it is made public within 50 years of creation, in which case copyright last for 70 years after being made public

c. Subject matter other than works

Types of Copyright Material	Current Term
Sound recording and films	70 years after creation, unless it is made public within 50 years of creation, in which case copyright last for 70 years after being made public
Published editions	25 years after the expiration of the calendar year in which the edition was first published
Television and radio broadcasts	50 years after the expiration of the calendar year in which the broadcast was made

d. Crown copyright

Types of Copyright Material	Current Term
Literary, artistic, dramatic and musical works, films or sound recordings made under the direction of the Crown	50 years after the expiration of the calendar year in which the work was made

 

Pre-1 January 2005 term of copyright protection (note that the period of copyright protection changed on 1 January 2005). Use this table to determine if a work was still in copyright on 1 January 2005)

e. Works

Types of Copyright Material	Previous Term
Literary works	Lifetime of author plus 50 years or 50 years after the date the work was first published, performed in public or broadcast (whichever is the later)
Artistic works (except photographs)	Lifetime of author plus 50 years or 50 years after the date the work was first published, performed in public or broadcast (whichever is the later)
Dramatic works	Lifetime of author plus 50 years or 50 years after the date the work was first published, performed in public or broadcast (whichever is the later)
Musical works	Lifetime of author plus 50 years or 50 years after the date the work was first published, performed in public or broadcast (whichever is the later)

f. Works – exceptions

Types of Copyright Material	Previous Term
Photographs	50 years from end of year photograph taken
Unpublished photographs	50 years from end of the year work first published (whenever that may be)
Anonymous works	50 years from end of year work first published

g. Subject matter other than works

Types of Copyright Material	Previous Term
Films	50 years from end of year film first released
Sound recordings	50 years from end of year recording first released
Published editions	25 years from end of year work first published

Is the work still in copyright?

For literary, dramatic, musical and artistic works you must first determine if the author is dead or alive:

• if the author is still alive, the material is still in copyright.
• if the author is dead, the material will be out of copyright if the author died over 70 years ago and may be out of copyright if the author died less than 70 years ago.

For all other works (sound recordings, film and broadcasts), the maker’s death does not matter and you must determine when the material was created and if and when it was first made public.

Just because a work is still in copyright, does not mean you cannot copy it. A statutory or voluntary licence or educational copyright exception may apply.

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Updated 14 September 2023

Works – the general rule of copyright ownership

The owner of the copyright in works will generally be the author or creator (eg the writer, artist, composer, etc). There are certain important exceptions to this rule, as set out below.

Other subject matter – the general rule of copyright ownership

The owner of the copyright in sound recordings , films and broadcasts will generally be the maker or producer.

This means that:

• • the owner of copyright in a sound recording is generally the record company
  • the owner of copyright in films is generally the producer and
  • the owner of copyright in a broadcast is the broadcaster.

Some exceptions to the general rule of copyright ownership

• • Contract – the rights given under the Copyright Act may be varied by agreement (eg the copyright owner may assign the copyright to someone else).
  • Employment – copyright in works made by an employee in the course of employment under a contract of service is usually owned by the employer (eg course materials produced by a teacher for use in the classroom will generally be owned by their employer, such as a Department of Education, the Catholic Education Commission or an Independent School).
  • Commissions – copyright in photographs, portraits and engravings commissioned for a private or domestic purpose will generally be owned by the person who commissioned the photograph, portrait or engraving. For all other commissions, the general rule is that the author or maker is the copyright owner unless the contract for the commission provides otherwise.
    • • Note: prior to July 1998, where a photograph was commissioned, the person commissioning the photograph was the copyright owner of the photograph. This means the commissioning client will usually be the copyright owner of photographs for photographs taken after 1968 until 1 July 1998, unless the contract for the commission provides otherwise.
  • Co-authorship – copyright may be owned by several authors jointly. Joint owners cannot deal with their copyright without the consent of the other authors. In order to qualify as a joint author, a person must have done more than merely supplied ideas or suggestions.
  • Crown copyright – where copyright material is created under the direction or control of the Crown, or where it is first published by the Crown, the copyright will be owned by the Crown. The Crown includes a wide range of government bodies, including government libraries and departments, but does not usually include independent statutory bodies such as the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.
  • Performers’ rights in sound recordings – unless otherwise agreed, the copyright in a sound recording made of a performance will be owned equally between the performer and the record company.

Special copyright ownership issues for schools/TAFE institutes

a. Staff copyright

i. Government schools
Government school staff are generally employed by the relevant State or Territory Department of Education. As the relevant Department of Education is a direct instrument of the Crown (government), the Crown copyright ownership provisions apply to works created by the relevant Department’s permanent employed staff and casual teachers.

The Crown copyright provisions provide that the Crown owns copyright in all works, films, sound recordings and broadcasts for works:

• • • • • created or made under the direction or control of the Crown or
        • first published in Australia by the Crown.

All works created under a consultancy or commission agreement will generally be considered to be created ‘under the direction or control of the Crown’ and therefore the Crown will own copyright in such works, unless it is agreed otherwise (eg in a written consultancy agreement).

ii. Independent schools
Where a teacher is employed directly by an independent school, then the employer ownership provisions under the Copyright Act apply. This means that the independent school, as the teacher’s employer, owns copyright materials produced by the teacher in the course of their employment, unless there is an agreement to the contrary.

Course notes, syllabuses and other teaching materials are likely to be owned by employers. On the other hand, if a teacher wrote a textbook or article on the subject they teach, copyright ownership of the textbook will belong to the teacher unless the school had required the teacher to write the book.

iii. TAFE institutes
Employment of TAFE teachers varies across Australia. Some are employed directly by the institute, others are employed by the State or Territory administering body or Department of Education or Training. Where TAFE teachers are employed by the State or Territory, the Crown copyright provisions will apply. Where TAFE teachers are employed by TAFE institutes that are independent statutory bodies, the institute will own copyright.

b. Student copyright

Generally, the student, as an author of a work, will own copyright in works they make while enrolled in a school or TAFE. If the school or TAFE wants to copy or communicate the student’s work, they will need to obtain the student’s consent. For a sample consent see Consent.

c. Copyright in school photographs

In general, copyright in photographs taken by an external photographer of individual students and classes will be owned by the photographer, unless there is an agreement to the contrary.

Educational institutions should enter into a licence agreement with the photographer to:

• • allow the schools to reproduce the photographs in school publications
  • allow the school to upload photographs to the school intranet and
  • limit the photographer’s use of the images to the sale of photographs to parents and students.

Alternatively you should contact your relevant copyright officer for advice or assistance in preparing a written licence.

d. Copyright in school celebratory publications

In general, copyright in celebratory publications (eg school centenary or anniversary publications) produced by the school will be owned by the school. If including old school photos, you should be aware:

• • for photos (eg old class photos) taken or published before 1 January 1955, copyright will have expired
  • for commissioned photos taken on or after 1 January 1955 and before 30 April 1969, the person who paid for them to be taken owns the copyright (unless agreed otherwise)
  • for commissioned photos taken on or after 1 May 1969 and before 30 July 1998, the person commissioning the photo (eg the school) is the copyright owner (unless otherwise agreed)
  • for commissioned photos taken after 30 July 1998, the photographer will be the copyright owner (unless otherwise agreed).

Note, schools should consider privacy and consent issues for photos with identifiable persons.

For material included in the publication that is not owned by your school or administering body (eg a poem or image sourced from online), you will need to seek permission to use this as part of your publication (unless the material is in the public domain or is Creative Commons licensed).

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The following three requirements must all be met in order for copyright to subsist in a work:

• The work must be reduced to material form.
  An idea itself will not receive copyright protection. The idea must be reduced to material form (whether it is written, recorded (including in musical or dance notation), filmed, painted, etc) before it is capable of copyright protection. The idea will only receive protection in the form in which it is expressed.
• The work must be made by a qualified person.
  To be a qualified person, an author of a work must be a citizen or resident of either Australia or a country to which Australia has promised copyright protection under international treaties and conventions. Most foreign copyright owners are also protected under international treaties such as the Berne Convention.
• The work must be original and the result of the author’s skill and effort.
  The work must be original. This does not mean the work must be novel or unique but the work must not be a slavish copy of another work. The work must be the product of the author’s independent skill and effort. The work does not have to be aesthetic in order to gain copyright protection. For example, accounting forms, football coupons and racing programs have been regarded by the courts as literary works capable of copyright protection.

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The Copyright Act divides the materials protected into two categories: works and other subject matter. The rules applying to the two categories are different – for example, the length and scope of copyright protection differs for the two different categories. Examples of the two categories include:

a. Works

Artistic Works	Literary Works	Musical Works	Dramatic Works
paintings sculptures graphics cartoons etchings lithographs photography drawings plans maps diagrams charts buildings models of buildings moulds and casts for sculptures	novels text books newspaper articles magazine articles journals poems song lyrics timetables technical manuals instruction manuals computer software computer games anthologies directories databases	melodies song music pop songs advertising jingles film score	plays screenplays mime choreography

b. Other Subject Matter

Films	Sound Recordings	Broadcasts	Published Editions
films video recordings DVDs television programs advertisements music videos online films and videos	digital recordings vinyl CD DVD audio cassette tapes	radio television	typesetting (the layout and look of a publication)

 

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A simple definition of copyright is that it is a bunch of rights in certain creative material such as text, artistic works, music, computer programs, sound recordings  and films.

The copyright owner has the right to control how their material is used. Copyright owners can prevent others from copying or communicating their material without their permission.

Copyright does not protect ideas, concepts, styles or techniques. For example, copyright will not protect an idea for a film or book, but it will protect a script or even a storyboard for the film.

Copyright is a separate right to the property right in an object. This means that the person who owns a book or painting will not own copyright in the book or painting unless it has been specifically assigned to them.

In Australia, copyright protection is automatic. There is no need for copyright registration in Australia, nor is there a legal requirement to publish the material or to put a copyright notice on it. Material will be protected as soon as it is put into material form, such as being written down or recorded in some way (eg filmed or recorded).

In Australia, copyright law is contained in the Copyright Act 1968.

Some common misconceptions

Here are some common copyright myths:

• • You must register copyright in Australia otherwise the material is copyright free.

No formal registration of copyright is required in Australia. This means you should generally assume that content will be protected by copyright.

• • If there is no copyright symbol or notice, then the material is copyright free.

The absence of a copyright symbol or notice on material does not mean that the copyright owner has abandoned their copyright or has granted an implied licence for anyone to use or reproduce or communicate their material.

• • Once material is published or in the public domain, anyone can use it.

The fact that material has been published or is made freely available does not mean that the:

o   copyright owner has abandoned their copyright or

o   material has entered the public domain and is no longer protected by copyright.

If you wish to copy and/or communicate the material, you must:

o   rely on one of the statutory or voluntary licences

o   rely on one of the copyright exceptions or

o   obtain permission from the copyright owner.

• • I am not infringing copyright if I am not making any money from my use of the material.

Your use may infringe copyright irrespective of whether you are making any money or profit from the use.

 

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What is copyright?

What is protected by copyright?

Requirements for copyright protection

Who owns copyright?

How long does copyright last?

What are the rights of a copyright owner?

Dealing with copyright

Statutory and voluntary licences

Copyright exceptions

How is copyright infringed?

Liability of schools, TAFE institutes and individuals for copyright infringement

Technological Protection Measures (TPMs)

Moral rights

Performers’ Rights

Indigenous Cultural and Intellectual Property Rights

Updated 1 February 2022

When is consent required?

Schools/TAFEs who wish to use a student’s work for non-educational purposes will need to seek consent from the student. Often schools will obtain this consent from students at the time of enrolment. Note, if the student is under 15 years old, you will need permission from the parent/guardian.

Consent is required when publishing students’ works internally (eg on a password protected digital teaching environment (DTE) or classroom) or externally (eg on the school website or social media platforms such as Facebook or YouTube):

• in class activities
• in documents, school magazines, newsletters, displays, journals, professional development materials used internally or externally
• as part of marketing materials for the school (eg an information booklet, poster or on the school website).

This information sheet provides sample templates for seeking permission/consent from students (or their parent/guardian).

Sample consent forms

NCU recommends schools/TAFEs use two separate forms:

• General student consent form – a form to deal with copyright in a student’s works
• Student photo and video consent form – a separate consent form to deal with privacy in student’s photographs and videos if the school/TAFE wishes to use photographs or videos of students. NCU does not recommend incorporating the privacy form as part of the general consent form.

It is not mandatory to use these forms. They are simply templates to assist schools/TAFEs when seeking consent from students for the use of student works. The templates can be modified to suit your school/TAFE’s purpose.

General student works consent form

The general student works consent form covers the school’s use of student copyright works (made by them or to which they may have contributed during the course of their studies) and asks parents/students (depending on the age of the student) for permission to publish, reproduce and communicate student works in publications and/or internal/external displays. There is no provision for parents and/or students to withdraw consent and the consent lasts for the term of copyright. If required, you can include options to limit how much of the student’s personal information is displayed (eg first name only).

This form also deals with the student’s moral rights. Moral rights means the right of integrity of authorship (that is, not to have the work subjected to derogatory treatment), the right of attribution of authorship of a work, and the right not to have attribution falsely attributed. In recognition of these moral rights, the student should receive an attribution (ie the student be named as author of creative work such as a poem or artwork if it is being reproduced in the school website or magazine), unless it is reasonable not to provide the attribution, or the student has consented to not receiving the attribution. However, we suggest that this full attribution be optional if requested by a parent/guardian/student (ie first name only with the student’s year, school).

Schools

For use by schools when they want to reproduce works that have been created by school students.

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TAFE

For use by TAFES when they want to reproduce works that have been created by TAFE students at a TAFE institute.

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Student photo and video consent form

Schools/TAFEs should use the student photo and video consent form when dealing with privacy in student’s photographs and videos.

When using this form, it is important to consider:

Duration period of consent – consider whether you only want to use the photographs/videos whilst the student is at the school/TAFE or whether you would also like to continue using it after the student has left the school (eg in promotional material, commemorative yearbooks, etc). In this template the permission is ongoing (ie goes beyond the end of the student’s time at your school) unless the student or parent/guardian withdraws it in writing.

Specific Consent – to ensure compliance with the Privacy Act, we recommend that the consent form lists the potential publications and gives parents the option to tick which publication(s) they wish their child’s photograph or video to appear in.

Withdrawal of consent – the form gives the student or parent/guardian (if the student is under 15) the right to withdraw consent at any time by giving written notice to the school, and emphasises that the individual has a responsibility to notify the school if they want to withdraw consent.

If that occurs, then the school can no longer use the photograph(s) or video(s) of the student. Once the school has received notice that the student’s consent is withdrawn, the school must not make any new publications of the student’s photographs or videos. The school must take reasonable steps to remove the student’s photograph or video from current publications but that this may not be possible or practical in some situations.

General Consent Form – Schools

For use by schools when they want to publish photos or video of school students and staff in print and online promotional, marketing, media and educational materials.

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General Consent Form – TAFE

For use by TAFEs when they want to publish photos or video of TAFE students and staff in print and online promotional, marketing, media and educational materials.

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Specific Consent Form – TAFE

For use by TAFES when they want to use images or video of TAFE students and staff for a specific marketing campaign, like an advertisement in a newspaper or pamphlet deigned to specifically promote the TAFE.

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In some circumstances, schools/TAFEs may need to seek permission from a third party copyright owner to use their copyright material. See Permissions for information about when permission is required and sample permission requests.

Permissions

If a school/TAFE is using material created by students and/or using photos or videos of students, it may need to seek consent from students (or their guardians). See Consents for information about when a consent form is required and sample consent forms.

Consents

Updated 16 March 2022

Introduction

The majority of schools are able to copy radio and television programs for educational purposes under the Statutory Broadcast Licence, which is administered by Screenrights. All government schools and the majority of Catholic and independent schools are covered by the Statutory Broadcast Licence. Please contact your local representative if you wish to check whether your school is covered.

The only TAFE institutes covered by the Statutory Broadcast Licence are all WA TAFE institutes and Bradfield Senior College in NSW.

The following information about the Statutory Broadcast Licence only applies to Schools and those few TAFEs who are covered by the Statutory Broadcast Licence.  TAFE institutes should see Use of Television Programs and Films by TAFE Institutes without a Screenrights Licence for information about using films and television programs without relying on the Statutory Broadcast Licence.

Note that if you are playing radio and television programs live in class, including from a free to air broadcaster’s website (eg podcasts and catch up TV) schools and TAFE can do this under a special copyright exception, section 28 of the Copyright Act. See Performance and communication of copyright material in TAFE classes.

What does the Statutory Broadcast Licence cover?

The Statutory Broadcast Licence covers the copying of:

• television broadcasts from free-to-air television (ABC, SBS, channels 7, 9, 10, Gem, etc)
• radio broadcasts from free-to-air radio (AM, FM, Digital)
• scheduled broadcast content on subscription TV (eg Foxtel), excluding any on demand content offered by those subscription services (eg Foxtel On Demand and Kayo Sports)
• online TV/radio programs from a free to air broadcaster’s website including podcasts and catch up TV, provided it has been broadcast by the free to air broadcaster at the same time or prior to it being made available on the website.

What is not covered by the Statutory Broadcast Licence?

The Statutory Broadcast Licence does not cover the copying of:

• online television/radio programs from the websites of subscription TV/Radio broadcasters
• television programs offered by subscription TV broadcasters outside their scheduled broadcast content (eg on demand content such as Foxtel On Demand or Kayo Sports)
• television programs from streaming services (eg Netflix, Stan)
• purchased television programs from iTunes, Google Play, online or retail stores (eg ABC Stores, Dymocks) in any format (eg Mp4, Blu-ray, DVD or VHS)
• films or DVDs which are bought or rented by the school
• online videos (eg from YouTube, Vimeo, TeachersTube, Edmodo, Khan Academy)
• online Games (eg from ABC for Kids).

Making and using the copy under the Statutory Broadcast Licence

The copy can be in any format (eg DVD, MP4). It makes no difference what recording device or platform you use to copy a program, including educational products/services such as ClickView, Functional Solutions, Kanopy or OnDemand Media.

Once you have made the copy you can:

• upload or save the copy of a program to a password protected intranet or DTE
• email the copy of a program to staff and students.

Some teachers or school librarians may make the copies themselves, and others may use an external resource centre, to make and supply the copy. Some of the resource centres that schools use are:

Resource Centre

ClickView

EnhanceTV

TV4Education

Understanding Faith

Informit

Wingaru

Educational purposes

You can copy a program under the Statutory Broadcast Licence for:

• teaching purposes
• use as part of a course of study
• library use as a teaching resource.

No copying limits

There are no copying limits, however, we recommend that you only copy what you need for educational purposes. This is important for managing copyright costs under the Statutory Broadcast Licence.

Educational institution must be covered by a remuneration notice

The educational institution or its administering body must have a remuneration notice with Screenrights. All government schools are covered by their respective education department’s remuneration notice and the majority of Catholic and independent schools are covered by the remuneration notices of their respective Catholic Education Commissions and Offices and Associations of Independent Schools.

The only TAFE institutes covered by the Statutory Broadcast Licence are all WA TAFE institutes and Bradfield Senior College in NSW.

Please contact your local copyright representative or the NCU if you wish to check whether your school or TAFE is covered.

Obtaining copies from other educational institutions

The Statutory Broadcast Licence allows educational institutions, which have a remuneration notice with Screenrights, to provide copies of radio and television programs to other educational institutions which have a remuneration notice with Screenrights.

Labelling/Attribution

We recommend that you always label/attribute any material you copy under the Statutory Broadcast Licence with the name of the program, the channel it was copied from and the date the copy was made. Eg:

Copied under the statutory Licence in s 113P of the Copyright Act 1968, ‘Media Watch’, ABC, 17 August 2020

Notice Requirements

Each time a program is uploaded to a password protected DTE, we recommend that you include the following notice:

[WARNING] This material has been copied [and communicated to you] in accordance with the statutory licence in section 113P of the Copyright 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.

 

A practical way of including this notice is to insert a link to the notice from the labelling information. This would mean that you would upload the notice to the DTE and then link to it when required. Eg:

Copied under the statutory licence in s 113P of the Copyright Act, ‘Media Watch’, ABC, 17 August 2019

 

Where it is not possible to include a link to the notice from the attribution information, the notice may be displayed (flashed) on the screen as the user logs into the DTE.

Although the Copyright Act does require the notice be attached to the material, it is not always possible to do this and displaying the notice is a practical way of including the notice where s 113P material is made available to students or staff on a digital teaching environment.

Where the notice is displayed on screen, it is important to state that the notice will only apply to some of the material on the repository. This is because not all material saved to the repository will be material copied under the Statutory Broadcast Licence. For example:

[WARNING] Some of this material may have been copied [and communicated to you] in accordance with the statutory licence in section 113P of the Copyright 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.

Activities not permitted under the Statutory Broadcast Licence

The following activities are not permitted under the Statutory Broadcast Licence:

• selling or supplying copies of programs for a profit
• copying for non-educational purposes
• copying on behalf of, or lending to, an institution not covered by a remuneration notice
• playing the television or radio in the staffroom or other public area (while this is not covered by the Statutory Broadcast Licence, certain uses may be allowed by the Schools Music Licence and section 106 of the Copyright Act or an interim licence schools have entered into with PPCA).

 Activities you can do without relying on the Statutory Broadcast Licence

Teachers can do the following activities without having to rely on the Statutory Broadcast Licence:

• bookmarking and sharing links to online films and videos
• playing radio or television or films in class, including from a free to air broadcaster’s website (eg podcasts and catch up television (see Performance and Communication of Copyright Material in Class)
• making a copy of a film (provided an exception under the Copyright Act applies or they otherwise have permission) and uploading it to a school’s DTE (see Films and Videos).

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Updated 7 December 2021

Schools, TAFE institutes, education departments and administrative bodies only need to seek permission from the copyright owner when:

• they are not able to rely on a statutory or voluntary licence or educational use exception to use material in the way they intend
• the material is not licensed under Creative Commons.

Examples include:

• uploading a learning resource which contains third party material to a public school or TAFE website
• copying a significant portion of a textbook that is commercially available to include in a learning resource.

Any permission should be obtained in writing from the copyright owner. However, permission can be as simple as an email from the copyright owner confirming that you are allowed to use the material in the way you intend. We have provided you with three templates you can use if you need to seek permission. The templates vary based on whether or not you have already informally obtained permission, and whether you have any prior relationship with the copyright owner:

1. Sample email requesting permission (if verbal permission already provided) – this email template is ideal for informal scenarios where you have already been given permission by the copyright owner to use their material verbally and are confirming this in writing.

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2. Sample email requesting permission (if no prior contact) – this template is best suited for where you wish to seek permission from a copyright owner to use their material, but you don’t need something as formal as a letter or form (eg from an organisation or individual you know).

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3. Sample letter to request permission – this draft can be used if you wish to send a letter rather than an email to seek permission from a copyright owner to use their material. It also includes a ‘Permission to Use Work’ form which the copyright owner can fill in and return to you.

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4. Simple email requesting permission (for Departments or Administering bodies wanting to share materials on their public facing website) – this template email is ideal for scenarios where a Department or Administering body is creating materials for students and teachers to access, and they want to share these materials on their public-facing website. This is particularly relevant for curriculum developers who are creating resources for students learning from home, and for access reasons, want to make these materials publicly available (rather than password protected), and are not able to link (or embed) to this material. If you do obtain permission, make sure you keep a record of the email on file.

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You don’t need to use these templates if you don’t want to. They are merely samples to give you an idea of what to include when seeking permission. If using a template, you should edit it to suit your needs and ensure it covers the material you wish to use, the purpose and how the material will be used.

Updated 22 February 2022

 Teachers regularly use internet materials for educational or other purposes.

‘Internet materials’ include a wide range of content, such as web pages, images, fact sheets, podcasts, online resources such as blogs, teaching guides, lesson plans, apps and video clips on sites such as YouTube or Vimeo. The materials may include text, images, radio and television broadcasts, films, videos or music.

Just because content is available on the internet does not mean that teachers can freely use it. You may be able to rely on one of the statutory licences, the Schools or TAFE music licences or one of the educational copyright exceptions, but this will depend on what type of material it is and how it is being used.

Text and Images

The Statutory Text and Artistic Works Licence covers the use of many commonly used internet materials. Examples of commonly used text and images found on the internet include online worksheets, fact sheets from public bodies like the Department of Health or resources published by private companies.

What uses of internet materials does the Statutory Text and Artistic Works Licence allow?

The rules that apply to text and artistic works under the Statutory Text and Artistic Works Licence apply to the use of these types of works on the internet in the same way. Schools and TAFE institutes may copy and communicate internet materials, provided that these activities are done for educational purposes. This includes:

• teaching purposes (such as downloading material in order to hand to students in class)
• using as part of a course of study (eg uploading material to a digital teaching environment (DTE) for access by a particular class)
• making and retaining copies for library use (eg as a teaching resource).

How much text can I copy from a website?

The Statutory Text and Artistic Works Licence does not contain any rules about how much of a website a teacher is allowed to copy or communicate. Instead, it allows teachers to copy and communicate internet materials as long as the amount copied or communicated “does not unreasonably prejudice the legitimate interests” of the copyright owner.

This means that there is no ‘one size fits all’ approach to what teachers can copy and communicate under the Statutory Text and Artistic Works Licence. Instead, there is flexibility to allow teachers to copy and communicate the amount they need where to do so would cause no harm to copyright owners.

In most cases, copying freely available internet materials for educational purposes will not cause any harm to a website owner. Unlike textbooks, journal articles or artworks, there will often be no expectation of payment for freely available internet materials. This means teachers can ordinarily copy all of a freely available internet resource. The NCU can provide more information about this if you are unclear of what you are allowed to copy.

Can I upload text and images that I found on the internet to our school’s DTE?

Teachers may upload text and artistic works from the internet to a DTE as long as:

• the amount copied and communicated does not unreasonably prejudice the copyright owner (see above)
• wherever possible, access to the content is restricted by a password to staff and students.

We recommend that you:

• always label/attribute any internet materials copied or communicated under the Statutory Text and Artistic Works Licence
• remove any internet materials that are no longer required by deleting and archiving.

Do schools pay to use text and images freely available on the internet?

Yes. Under the Statutory Text and Artistic Works Licence schools are required to pay to use freely available internet materials. Schools are even required to pay for printable educational resources containing taglines such as “Free Printable Maps are great for teachers to use in their classes”.

Some of the freely available materials that schools have paid to use include:

• online TV guides
• mental health or head lice fact sheets
• websites advertising products, including a website advertising earplugs for dentists and a costume hire website
• the ‘About Us’ page from company websites
• world time zone maps.

Schools are required to pay for this material because the Statutory Text and Artistic Works Licence covers every use of copyright material that is not covered by an existing licence.

Playing films, videos, music and radio and television programs in class

Teachers and students at schools or TAFE can play films or music from the internet (eg stream from YouTube) and radio and television programs that are available online (eg from a broadcaster’s website) in class under a special exception (s 28 of the Copyright Act) provided it is:

• in the course of education and is not for profit
• the people in the audience or class are giving or receiving instruction or are directly connected with the place where instruction is given.

For further information on s 28, schools should see Performance and communication of copyright material in class and TAFE institutes should see Performance and communication of copyright material in TAFE classes.

Downloading radio and television broadcasts from the internet

The majority of schools are able to download online TV/radio programs, including podcasts and catch up TV, under the Statutory Broadcast Licence. The program must be available on a free to air broadcaster’s website, and the program must have actually been broadcast by the free to air broadcaster. You can normally work out whether a program has been broadcast, because the broadcast details (eg date and time of broadcast) will be stated.

An educational body can copy either a small amount, or even an entire online TV/radio broadcast for educational purposes. There are no specific copying limits under the Statutory Broadcast Licence. However, we recommend that you only copy what you need for educational purposes. This is important for managing copyright costs under the Statutory Broadcast Licence.

All government schools and the majority of Catholic and independent schools are covered by the Statutory Broadcast Licence. Please contact your local representative if you wish to check whether your school is covered.

The only TAFE institutes covered by the Statutory Broadcast Licence are all WA TAFE institutes and Bradfield Senior College in NSW.

For more information see Radio and Television Broadcasts.

What internet materials are not covered by the Statutory Broadcast Licence?

The Statutory Broadcast Licence does not cover:

• online TV/radio programs from the websites of Pay TV/Radio broadcasters that have not previously been broadcast
• television programs from streaming services (eg Netflix, Stan, Disney+)
• purchased television programs from Google Play, YouTube, online or retail stores (eg ABC Stores, Dymocks) in any format (eg Mp4, Blu-ray, DVD or VHS)
• online videos (eg fromYouTube, vimeo, TeachersTube, Edmodo, Khan Academy)
• online Games (eg from https://www.abc.net.au/abckids/games/)

As discussed above, you can still play this content in class, and you can copy short extracts from films and online videos that are not covered by the Statutory Broadcast Licence for educational instruction in certain circumstances.  For information on copying short extracts see Flexible Dealing.

Downloading films and videos from the internet

If a teacher wants to download a film from the internet for a specific educational purpose (eg they want to download a video from YouTube on COVID-19 for a social science class and upload it to the school’s DTE), they may be able to do this under the flexible dealing exception in very limited circumstances and following certain requirements. Note that copying films from sites like YouTube or Vimeo may be contrary to their terms of use or involve the use of circumvention devices.

For more information see YouTube – Using, Films and Videos, Flexible Dealing and Circumventing Technological Protection Measures.

Downloading music from the internet

Under the Schools Music Licence schools are permitted to use music from the internet to:

• play at a school event (eg downloading music to play at a school graduation)
• include in a video or presentation (eg classroom PowerPoint slides, or in presentations at assemblies or functions).

The recordings should display the following notice:

‘This recording has been made under a licence from AMOS and ARIA for school purposes only’.

For more information see Music Guidelines and Music Copyright Guide for Schools.

TAFE teachers can rely on the TAFE Music Licence to use music from the internet to:

• play at a TAFE event (eg downloading music to play at a TAFE fashion show)
• incorporate a sound recording into another work (eg adding music to a PowerPoint presentation).

For more information see Music Guidelines and Music Copyright Guide for TAFEs.

Linking to internet materials

It is fine to include links to webpages and other content on the internet in materials you are preparing, including teaching materials, student worksheets or course manuals, or even from your school’s website. We recommend linking, as it is a good way of directing students to content, without making a copy of it.

Copyright exceptions

For internet content that is not covered by a statutory licence, teachers may also be able to rely on one of the copyright exceptions when using internet materials for specific purposes.

Fair dealing

Teachers and students may be able to copy and communicate internet materials under the fair dealing exception. Teachers will only be able to rely on the fair dealing exception for their own research or study. Students using internet materials as part of their study will generally be able to rely on the fair dealing exception for research and study.

For more information see Copyright Exceptions.

Disability exceptions

If you are copying or communicating internet materials in order to make it accessible to a student with a disability, you may be able to do this under the disability exceptions.

For more information see Disability Access Exceptions.

Exam copying

Teachers are allowed to copy and communicate internet materials for use in online and hardcopy exams. This exception does not extend to practice papers.  You can only rely on this exception to copy and communicate internet materials for actual exams and assessments.

For more information see Copying for Exams.

Flexible dealing

If you want to use internet materials for a specific educational purpose in a way not permitted by the Statutory Text and Artistic Works Licence or by any of the other copyright exceptions, you may, in limited circumstances, be able to rely on the flexible dealing exception.

For example, you may be able to:

• making a captioned copy of a Vimeo clip for student use
• upload a freely available game or app into a DTE for educational purposes
• make a copy of a podcast for students.

For more information see Flexible Dealing.

Attribution

Teachers should always attribute the material they copy and communicate, whether it is owned by their school, TAFE or educational body or someone else. For information on how to attribute text material see Labelling and Attributing.

 

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Licences for Schools and TAFE

Statutory Broadcast Licence

Statutory Text and Artistic Works Licence

Licences for Schools only

Schools Music Licence

Licences for TAFEs only

TAFE Music Licence

 

Section 113P Notice

The Copyright Act contains two disability copying exceptions:

• use of copyright material by organisations assisting persons with a disability
• fair dealing for the purpose of assisting persons with a disability.

Both of these exceptions can be used by TAFEs and schools to assist students with a disability, but the circumstances in which they apply differ.

Disability is defined as ‘a disability that causes the person difficulty in reading, viewing, hearing or comprehending copyright material in a particular form’. This would include students with vision impairment, students who are unable to hold or manipulate books, students with an intellectual disability and students with general learning difficulties such as dyslexia.

These guidelines explain how each of these exceptions works (and the difference between them), as well as the interaction between the disability copying exceptions and the statutory licences.

TAFEs and schools do not need to rely on the Statutory Text and Artistic Works Licence or Statutory Broadcast Licence for any copying that could be done in reliance on either of the disability exceptions.

The organisational disability exception

The organisational disability exception in s 113F allows TAFEs and schools to make accessible format copies for students with a disability if the copyright material is not commercially available in the format required by the student and with the appropriate features they require. Therefore, if the copyright material your student requires can be obtained in the required format within a reasonable time at an ordinary commercial price, you cannot rely on this exception. In this case, your only option will be to purchase a copy of the content you require.

There is no restriction on the kind of format that can be created under this exception. It could include, for example, converting a book into easy English, providing captions, providing audio-descriptions, scanning for use with other assistive technology and making necessary adjustments to enable a student to adjust font size or colour.

The commercial availability test can be applied to the format that the student requires (ie copies can be made in a format that is most suitable for the particular student, even if a copy of the work can be purchased in a different but unsuitable format).

Before relying on the organisational disability exception, a TAFE or school must be satisfied that the material (or a relevant part of the material) cannot be obtained in the required format within a reasonable time at an ordinary commercial price. This condition means that you should take steps to determine whether the work is available for purchase. The question of what amounts to a ‘reasonable time’ will depend on the particular circumstances in each case. If, for example, material in an accessible format is required for a particular course at very short notice, it would be permissible to rely on the exception if no commercially available copy could be sourced at such short notice.

The organisational disability exception applies to all copyright material (ie text and artistic works as well as audio-visual content such as films and sound recordings.

There is no obligation to mark copies, but we suggest that it would be good practice to include the following notice where reasonably practicable:

‘This material has been copied/made available to you under s 113F of the Copyright 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 for disability exception

It is permissible to circumvent a technological protection measure (TPM) in order to rely on the organisational disability exception.

The fair dealing for disability exception in s 113E permits TAFEs and schools to make ‘fair dealings’ of copyright material for the purpose of providing students with a disability to have access to the content.

For the fair dealing for disability exception to apply, you will need to be show:

• the purpose of the dealing is for one or more persons with a disability having access to the copyright material
• the dealing was fair.

There are four ‘fairness factors’ that must be taken into account when determining if the use was fair:

• the purpose and character of the use
• the nature of the copyright material
• the effect of the use upon the potential market for, or value of, the material
• if only part of the material is used, the amount and substantiality of the part used in relation to the whole material.

In applying these factors, you should have regard to the following:

• Each factor should be considered.
• The first factor: the purpose and character of the use. If the use is made to assist a person with a disability to enjoy copyright material, this factor is likely to be satisfied.
• The second factor: the nature of the copyright material. Whether material is in print and available, as well as if it is published or unpublished, are relevant issues for consideration.
• The third factor: the effect of the use upon the potential market for, or value of the material. This factor requires an analysis of whether the proposed use of copyright material is reasonably fair with regard to the interests of the copyright holder. If material is commercially available, factors one, two and four become more important, noting that a use may still be considered fair even if the material is commercially available. Only substantial market harm from the individual use should be considered unfair.
• The fourth factor: if only part of the material is used, the amount and substantiality of the part used, taken in relation to the whole material. This factor requires consideration of the portion of the material to be used or quantity of copies to be made. A copy of the whole copyright material may be required by persons with a disability where the material is not available in the format required or with necessary accessibility features.

If your intended use is likely to satisfy the fairness factors in the fair dealing for disability exception, you can rely on the fair dealing exception regardless of whether the material that your student requires can be purchased in the required format.

Which exception should I rely on?

If you want to make an accessible version of a work that is not commercially available in the format you need, you may be able to rely on the organisational disability exception to make an accessible version of the whole work.

If the work is commercially available, and you want to make an accessible version of part of the work, you may be able to rely on the fair dealing for disability exception.

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The exam copying exception in section 200(1A) of the Copyright Act allows schools and TAFE to copy and communicate material for the purpose of conducting or answering a question in an exam. Staff can rely on the exam copying exception to use copyright material in exam questions, and students can rely on the exception to use copyright material in their answers.

The exam copying exception applies to all types of material (eg images, text, music, videos and films).It applies to both paper and online exams, as long as they are an assessable component of the course. You can’t rely on it for example exam papers or practice quizzes. These uses are likely to be covered by either the Statutory Text and Artistic Works Licence or another educational exception.

Who can rely on the exam copying exception?

The exception applies to anyone copying or communicating material for use in exams. This would include schools as well as curriculum bodies like the Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority (ACARA) and state based curriculum bodies like the WA School Curriculum and Standards Authority.

What types of copyright material can I copy for use in examinations?

Any material, including, but not limited to films, songs, radio broadcasts, poems, short stories and textbooks in any format, can be copied for use in an exam.

Does it matter if the exam is conducted in person or online?

The exam copying exception applies to both in-person/pen and paper and online exams or assessments.

Is there a requirement to label material copied under the exam copying exception?

There is no requirement to label material copied under the Exam Copying Exception. However, we recommend that it is best practice to mark material copied for take home exams with the following notice to limit potential liability of the school or TAFE in the event that a student uses the content in a way that may infringe copyright.

[WARNING]

This material has been copied [and communicated to you] in accordance with the exam copying exception in section 200(1A) of the Copyright 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.

 

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There are a number of copyright exceptions that apply to copying undertaken by TAFE and school libraries. This guide explains when each of these exceptions applies.

Making copies of content held by a TAFE or school library for the purpose of preserving the content: the preservation copying exception

Library staff can copy content in order to preserve their collection under section 113H of the Copyright Act. This applies to all copyright material (eg text and artistic works, sound recordings and films). They can make a physical copy, email it to others and back it up on cloud services as long as this is for preservation purposes. This exception will not apply if the library had another purpose for making the copy, such as creating an electronic copy to make available to students undertaking the course.

You will only need to purchase a new copy of the material if it is commercially available in the preservation format you need. For example, if you need a preservation copy of a book in digital format, and the book is available to purchase in digital form, you will need to buy the book and cannot rely on s 113H to make a preservation copy.

Once a preservation copy has been made for the relevant purpose, the library can rely on this provision to allow users of the library to:

• access the copyright material in electronic form in the library
• loan the preservation copies out

provided reasonable steps are taken to ensure the person who accesses the copy does not infringe copyright. The Copyright Act does not provide specific guidance on what constitutes ‘reasonable steps’ to ensure a person who access the material does not infringe copyright. However, one way to do this is to include a notice next to any photocopiers at the library or any hardcopy books, and in the case of digital material, a notice next to (or on the screen of) any computers at the library as well as on the cover of the actual DVD or USB or onscreen when someone loads the DVD or USB.

See here for some examples of copyright warning notices you can use or adapt to suit your purposes.

Making copies of content held by a TAFE/school library for the purpose of research carried out at the library: the library research exception

The library research exception in s 113J of the Copyright Act permits TAFE/school libraries to make copies of copyright material that they already hold in their collections for the purpose of research carried out at the library, provided that the library takes reasonable steps to ensure that the person who accesses the copy does not infringe copyright.

An example of this would be making a digital copy of a book that the library holds in its collection in order to enable staff or students to access the copy (eg via a terminal at the library) for their own research purposes. This exception applies to all copyright material (eg text and artistic works, sound recordings and films).

There is no requirement to include any notice on copies made under this exception.

Making and supplying copies of content held by a TAFE or school library at the request of a student for that student’s research or study: the copying for users exception

The copying for users exception in s 49 of the Copyright Act permits TAFE and school libraries to make a copy of a text or artistic work at the request of a user (whether a teacher or a student) for that person’s own research or study. The request must generally be in writing and must contain a declaration from the person requesting the copy that it is only for research or study and not for any other purpose, and that the person has not been previously supplied with a copy of the same work by the library.

This exception does not apply to audio-visual material or sound recordings.

The following copying limits apply:

• periodical publications – one article, or two or more articles from the same issue if the articles are for the same research or course of study
• works in hardcopy form, other than an article in a periodical publication – 10% or one chapter, whichever is the greater
• works in electronic form –  10% of the words in the work .

If more than this is required, the teacher-librarian must first be satisfied that the work to be copied is not available for purchase, new, as a separate publication, at an ordinary commercial price within a reasonable time.

Copies made under this exception must contain a notice stating that the copy was made by the TAFE or school library, and the date on which the copy was made.

If the copy has been made by scanning from a hardcopy in the library’s collection, the electronic copy that is made must be destroyed as soon as practicable after it has been sent to the person requesting it.

If a copying charge is made, the cost must not exceed the cost to the library of making and supplying the copy.

Making copies of content held by a TAFE or school library at the request of another library: the interlibrary loan exception

The interlibrary loan exception in s 50 of the Copyright Act permits a TAFE or school library to make a copy of a text or artistic work for either a user of another library, or to be included in another library’s collection. Where a TAFE or school library requests a copy of material from another library under this exception, it must complete an interlibrary request form in the required form. You can obtain a sample request and copying form here.

This exception does not apply to audio-visual material or sound recordings.

The copying limits are the same as those set out above in relation to the copying for users exception in s 49.

Copies made under the interlibrary loan exception must contain a notice stating that the copy was made by the TAFE or school library, and the date on which the copy was made.

If the copy has been made by scanning from a hardcopy in the library’s collection, the electronic copy that is made must be destroyed as soon as practicable after it has been sent to the person requesting it.

If a copying charge is made, the cost must not exceed the cost to the library of making and supplying the copy.

All records of copying should be kept for four years. Three separate files are recommended, namely:

•  requests made
•  requests pending
•   copies supplied.

All the forms that relate to interlibrary loans must be filed chronologically by the date of declaration.

Using copyright material for administration purposes

The administration copying exception in s 113K allows libraries to use copyright material directly related to the care or control of their collection. This section covers all materials including online and electronic materials.

Some examples of copying for administration purposes include:

• to train library staff in preservation copying and the restoration of old or damaged materials
• for library reporting requirements
• including ‘snippets’ of information from the back of books or websites that provide a brief description of the material to be included in a library catalogue
• using thumbnails of the cover of a book to include in a library’s online catalogue.

Making copies for use in class

The library copying provisions discussed above cannot be used when the purpose of the copying is to make copies for use in class.

TAFE and school libraries can rely on the Statutory Text and Artistic Works Licence to copy an entire work and make this available to students if the work is out of print and cannot be purchased in electronic form in a reasonable time for an ordinary commercial price.

Copying and communicating content in reliance on the flexible dealing exception in s 200AB

The flexible dealing exception in s 200AB of the Copyright Act also contains a library copying provision that can be relied on by TAFE and school libraries for copying in very limited circumstances. Note that the library copying flexible dealing exception is contained in s 200AB(2), and is a separate provision to the educational flexible dealing exception contained in s 200AB(3), which can be relied on when the TAFE or school is making copies for the purpose of “giving educational instruction”.

You can only rely on the library copying flexible dealing exception if none of the exceptions discussed above (or any other exception) apply. There are likely to be few circumstances in which the library copying flexible dealing exception would apply to copying by a TAFE or school library.

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Library Copying

Library Fair Dealing and Copying Notice

Copying for Exams

Disability Access Exceptions

Updated 20 July 2021

Teachers may want to use radio and television broadcasts for educational and other purposes.

Playing the radio or television in class

Teachers and students at schools or TAFE can play radio and television programs in class (eg Behind the News) or live stream from catch up services, such as ABC iView or SBS On Demand, or from broadcasters’ online channels, under a special exception (section 28 of the Australian Copyright Act) provided it is:

• in the course of education and is not for profit; and
• the people in the audience or class are giving or receiving instruction or are directly connected with the place where instruction is given.

For further information on s 28, schools should see Performance and Communication of Copyright Material in Class: What am I allowed to do? and TAFE institutes should see Performance and Communication of Copyright Material in Class: What am I allowed to do? and Use of Television Programs and Film by TAFE Institutes without a Screenrights Licence.

Copying a radio or television broadcast

The majority of schools are able to copy radio and television programs for educational purposes under the Statutory Broadcast Licence. All government schools and the majority of Catholic and independent schools are covered by the Statutory Broadcast Licence. Please contact your local representative if you wish to check whether your school is covered.

The only TAFE institutes covered by the Statutory Broadcast Licence are all WA TAFE institutes and Bradfield Senior College in NSW.

What does the Statutory Broadcast Licence cover?

The Statutory Broadcast Licence covers:

• television broadcasts from free-to-air television (ABC, SBS, channels 7, 9, 10, Gem, etc)
• radio broadcasts from free-to-air radio (AM, FM, Digital)
• scheduled broadcast content on subscription TV (eg Foxtel), excluding any on demand content offered by those subscription services (eg Foxtel On Demand and Kayo Sports)
• online TV/radio programs from a free to air broadcaster’s website including podcasts and catch up TV, provided it has been broadcast by the free to air broadcaster.

What is not covered by the Statutory Broadcast Licence?

The Statutory Broadcast Licence does not cover:

• online television/radio programs from the websites of subscription TV/Radio broadcasters
• television programs offered by subscription TV broadcasters outside their scheduled broadcast content (eg on demand content such as Foxtel On Demand or Kayo Sports)
• television programs from streaming services (eg Netflix, Stan)
• purchased television programs from iTunes, Google Play, online or retail stores (eg ABC Stores, Dymocks) in any format (eg Mp4, Blu-ray, DVD or VHS)
• films or DVDs which are bought or rented by the school
• online videos (eg fromYouTube, vimeo, TeachersTube, Edmodo, Khan Academy)
• online games (eg from ABC for Kids).

Making and using the copy under the Statutory Broadcast Licence

The copy can be in any format (eg VHS, DVD, MP4). It makes no difference what recording device or platform you use to copy a program, including educational products/services such as ClickView, Functional Solutions, Kanopy or OnDemand Media.

Some teachers or school librarians may make the copies themselves, and others may use an external resource centre, such as ClickView, Enhance TV or TV4Education to make and supply the copy.

You can:

• upload or save the copy of a program to a password protected intranet or DTE
• email a copy of a program to staff and students.

There are no copying limits, however, we recommend that you only copy what you need for educational purposes. This is important for managing copyright costs under the Statutory Broadcast Licence.

If your school or TAFE institute is not covered by the Statutory Broadcast Licence

If your school or TAFE institute is not covered by the Statutory Broadcast Licence you can still play live radio and television broadcasts in class, but you are not permitted to make copies of radio and television broadcasts. You will be able to source audio-visual content from many other sources, such as YouTube, online educational video providers or services such as Kanopy or ClickView to play in class.

In limited circumstances, you may be permitted to upload audio-visual material to your school or TAFE DTE. For further information see Films and Videos and Flexible Dealing.

For information for TAFE see Use of Television Programs and Film by TAFE Institutes without a Statutory Broadcast Licence.

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Updated 20 July 2021

Teachers regularly use films and videos for educational and other purposes. The films or video content could be from a range of sources such as Netflix, YouTube, Stan, Google Play, Amazon Prime, iTunes or Apple TV.

What is a film?

In this section, the term film refers to all audio-visual material such as films, videos and DVDs that show moving images with or without sound.

Examples of films include:

• videos
• feature, short and documentary films
• animations or cartoons
• on demand television programs offered by subscription services
• film trailers
• television advertisements
• corporate or education videos
• video and computer games
• podcasts and vodcasts of audio visual material.

We are not talking here about television broadcasts, which include any audio-visual material that is:

• broadcast on free-to-air television
• free-to-air television content made available online by the broadcaster at the same time or after the broadcast of that content
• scheduled broadcast content on subscription TV (eg Foxtel), excluding any on demand content offered by those subscription services (eg Foxtel On Demand and Kayo Sports).

If you are using television broadcasts, you may be able to rely on the Statutory Broadcast Licence.  For more information see Radio and Television Broadcasts.

It is essential that films played in schools are obtained from legitimate sources. Films, for example, may be purchased or hired from non-theatrical film distributors, licensed lending libraries or educational sources for screening on school premises or downloaded from legitimate film sites (eg iTunes).

Playing pirated copies puts you, your school, your principal and your educational body at risk of serious civil penalties which include payment of compensation to the copyright owner as well as criminal penalties. For this reason, schools should not accept donations or loans of DVDs or videos from students or parents. We recommend that schools source their own films to ensure that they are not pirated copies.

Playing films

In class

Teachers and students at schools or TAFE can play films (eg stream from YouTube, Netflix or Stan or play from a DVD) in class under a special exception in the Australian Copyright Act (section 28) provided it is:

• in the course of education and is not for profit; and
• the people in the audience or class are giving or receiving instruction or are directly connected with the place where instruction is given.

Teachers can upload films to a school intranet or DTE in order to play them in class, but they should remove them from the DTE, or remove access to the films by students, as soon as the class is over.

For further information on s 28, schools should see Performance and Communication of Works and Audio Visual Material in Class: What am I allowed to do?’ and TAFE institutes should see Performance and Communication of Works and Audio Visual Material in Class: What am I allowed to do?

For non-teaching purposes

S 28 will not apply to teachers and students playing films for non-teaching activities (eg at camps, on bus excursions or for lunchtime entertainment on rainy days).

Co-Curricular Licence

The Australian school sector has negotiated a voluntary blanket licence, called the Co-Curricular Licence, with Roadshow Public Performance Licensing (‘Roadshow’) for the playing of films by schools for non-educational purposes. This includes:

• at school for entertainment purposes (eg at lunchtime on a rainy day)
• on bus excursions, where the school provides the DVD (not the bus company)
• at school camps and excursions, including outdoor screenings at camp, where the school provides the DVD (not the camp)
• at after-school care and holiday programs conducted at and by the school.

Not all schools in Australia are covered by the Co-Curricular Licence. Schools that are not covered by this Licence must seek permission from the non-theatrical distributor of the film to play the film for non-educational purposes. To find out whether your school is covered by the Co-Curricular Licence, contact your local copyright advisor. Note that this agreement does not apply to TAFE.

For further information on the Co-Curricular Licence, see information sheet Playing Films for Non-Educational Purposes. TAFE institutes will need to obtain a licence to play a film for non-teaching purposes.

Boarding Schools

It is generally fine for students in a boarding house to screen a film for their own private purposes as it won’t be considered a public performance.

Making a copy of a film and uploading it to a school’s DTE

If a teacher wants to make a copy of a film for a specific educational purpose (eg they want to upload a documentary on World War II to the school’s DTE in order to show it to a year ten history class), they may be able to do this under the flexible dealing exception provided:

• they, or the school, own a copy of the film, but the copy is not in a format that they require and they are not able to buy it in the required format
• the film can only be viewed by the teachers and students in the relevant class (i.e. the film is accessible to students in one course as opposed to the students enrolled in the entire institute)
• the teacher removes the film from the DTE or disables access by the students to the film immediately after the class.

Some examples of uses that are permitted under the flexible dealing exception include:

• making a digital copy of a DVD to upload to a school’s DTE in order to play to a geography class
• compiling extracts of audio-visual material for use in class (eg making a compilation of short extracts of several films for an English class) when it is not possible to buy a similar teaching resource
• downloading a YouTube video to play in class. For information on downloading YouTube videos see Youtube – Using.

Labelling copies

It is good practice to label copies made under the flexible dealing exception with words similar to:

‘This material has been copied and communicated to you in accordance with the educational use provisions of the Copyright 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 [insert date material has been copied and made available to students].’

For further information see Flexible Dealing.

Other copyright exceptions

Teachers may also be able to rely on one of the copyright exceptions when a copying films or videos for specific purposes.

Fair dealing

Teachers and students may be able to copy and communicate films under the fair dealing for research and study exception. Teachers will only be able to rely on the fair dealing exception in limited circumstances, (ie it must be for their own research and study and not the research and study of their students), but students using films as part of their study will generally be able to rely on the fair dealing exception of research and study.

For more information see Copyright Exceptions.

Disability exceptions

If you are copying or communicating films in order to make them accessible to a student with a disability, you may be able to do this under the disability exceptions.

For more information see Disability Access Exceptions.

Exam copying

Teachers are allowed to copy and communicate films for use in online and hardcopy exams. This exception does not extend to practice papers.  You can only rely on this exception to copy and communicate text for actual exams and assessments.

For more information see Copying for Exams.

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Updated 12 January 2022

Teachers regularly copy text works for educational or other purposes. Text works include literary, dramatic and musical works. Examples include textbooks, picture books, novels, poems, plays, screenplays, song lyrics, PDF documents and content on websites, such as teacher resources, student worksheets and activities or online newspapers.

Generally, when teachers copy text works they rely on the Statutory Text and Artistic Works Licence or possibly one of the copyright exceptions.

Statutory Text and Artistic Works Licence

What uses of text works does the Statutory Text and Artistic Works Licence allow?

Schools and TAFE institutes may copy and communicate text in both hardcopy and electronic form.

Any copies and communications must be made for educational purposes. This includes:

• teaching purposes (such as photocopying in order to hand to students in class)
• using as part of a course of study (eg uploading material to a digital teaching environment (DTE) for access by a particular class)
• making and retaining copies for library use (eg as a teaching resource).

What is a copy?

All forms of copying (of both hardcopy and digital/electronic works) can be covered by the Statutory Text and Artistic Works Licence. Making a copy includes photocopying, scanning, printing, taking a photograph or making a video recording that displays the text, downloading works from a webpage or cloud storage drive, or saving a copy to a digital teaching environment (DTE), personal computer, USB drive or personal cloud storage service.

What is a communication?

A communication under the Statutory Text and Artistic Licence involves making copyright material available online or electronically transmitting copyright material.

‘Making material available online’ can include uploading material to a DTE for student access and use via password protected access such as:

• a shared drive/intranet (eg Microsoft 365)
• content or learning management systems (eg Moodle, Blackboard or Equella)
• to a closed class area on an education platform (eg Edmodo, Verso or Google Classroom).

A DTE is an online environment with features that enable students and teachers to store and engage with course content, manage course work, and explore material. Examples used in schools and TAFE include:

• learning management systems (eg Moodle, Blackboard, SIMON, Schoology, Schoolbox, SEQTA or Infrastructure Canvas)
• learning content management systems (eg EQUELLA)
• closed class areas on an education platform (eg Edmodo, Verso or Google Classroom)
• password protected wikis
• portals
• interactive whiteboard galleries and media libraries
• password protected share drives.

‘Electronically transmitting’ includes emailing, streaming or using an electronic reticulation system to share material (eg libraries might have an electronic delivery system to transmit material centrally).

A communication does not include:

• displaying a website live in class for students to read
• bookmarking and sharing links to online articles or resources
• emailing links to online articles and resources, rather than emailing a PDF or word version of the resource.

These activities are not copyright activities and therefore you can do these things without needing a licence or permission.

How much can I copy and communicate under the Statutory Text and Artistic Works Licence?

The Statutory Text and Artistic Works Licence does not contain any rules at all about how much of a text work a teacher is allowed to copy or communicate. Instead, it allows teachers to copy and communicate text works as long as the amount copied or communicated “does not unreasonably prejudice the legitimate interests” of the copyright owner.

This means that there is not a ‘one size fits all’ approach to what teachers can copy and communicate under the Statutory Text and Artistic Works Licence. Instead, there is flexibility to allow teachers to copy and communicate the amount they need where to do so would cause no harm to the copyright owner.

This means that for many works commonly used by teachers with students (for example those that are currently available to buy), only portions of the work can be copied for educational purposes under the licence. For these works, the ‘10% or one chapter rule’ is still a useful guide in making this assessment for many resources that are still commercially available.

For other works, such as older ‘out of print’ works, or works made available on the internet without any expectation of payment, teachers may be able to copy more (or even all) of a work.

Can I upload materials to our school’s DTE?

Teachers may upload text works to a DTE as long as:

• the amount copied and communicated does not unreasonably prejudice the copyright owner (see above)
• wherever possible, access to the content is restricted by a password to staff and students.

We recommend that you:

• always label/attribute any text works you copy or communicate under the Statutory Text and Artistic Works Licence
• remove any text works that are no longer required by deleting and archiving.

Copyright exceptions

Teachers may also be able to rely on one of the copyright exceptions when a copying text work for specific purposes.

Fair dealing

Teachers and students may be able to copy and communicate some text under the fair dealing for research and study exception. Teachers will only be able to rely on the fair dealing exception in limited circumstances, where it is for their own research and study and not the research and study of their students.  However, students using text as part of their study will generally be able to rely on the fair dealing exception of research and study.

For more information see Copyright Exceptions.

Disability exceptions

If you are copying or communicating text material in order to make it accessible to a student with a disability, you may be able to do this under the disability exceptions.

For more information see Disability Access Exceptions.

Exam copying

Teachers are allowed to copy and communicate text material for use in online and hardcopy exams. This exception does not extend to practice papers.  You can only rely on this exception to copy and communicate text for actual exams and assessments.

For more information see Copying for Exams.

Flexible dealing

If you want to use text works for a specific educational purpose in a way not permitted by the Statutory Text and Artistic Works Licence or by any of the other copyright exceptions, you may, in limited circumstances, be able to rely on the flexible dealing exception.

For example, you may be able to:

• translate an extract of an Australian novel into Japanese for a Japanese language class, where you cannot buy a copy of the book in Japanese
• adapt a short story into a play script
• make an audiobook of a story book, where the story book is not available in an audiobook format (for information on the Storytime Arrangement during COVID-19 see Revival of the Storytime Arrangement).

For more information see Flexible Dealing.

Attribution

Teachers should always attribute the work they copy and communicate, whether it is owned by their school, TAFE or educational body or someone else. For information on how to attribute text material see Labelling and Attributing.

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Updated 12 January 2022

Teachers regularly copy artistic works and images for educational or other purposes. The artistic works and images might be in a hardcopy or digital format. Artistic works and images include digital images (including from sources like Pinterest, Getty Images, Google or Instagram), paintings, photos, drawings, cartoons, book covers and other pictures in books, maps and charts.

Generally, when teachers copy artistic works or images they rely on the Statutory Text and Artistic Works Licence or one of the copyright exceptions.

What uses of artistic works does the Statutory Text and Artistic Works Licence allow?

Schools and TAFE institutes can copy and communicate artistic works and images under the Statutory Text and Artistic Works Licence.

Any copies and communications must be made for educational purposes. This includes:

• teaching purposes (eg photocopying in order to hand to students in class)
• using as part of a course of study (eg uploading material to a digital teaching environment (DTE) for access by a particular class)
• making and retaining copies for library use (eg as a teaching resource).

What is a copy?

All forms of copying (of both hard copy and digital/electronic works) can be covered by the Statutory Text and Artistic Works Licence. Making a copy includes photocopying, scanning, printing, recording as part of a video or film, taking a photograph, downloading works from a webpage or cloud storage drive, or saving a copy to a DTE, personal computer, USB drive or personal cloud storage service.

What is a communication?

A communication under the Statutory Text and Artistic Licence involves making copyright material available online or electronically transmitting copyright material.

‘Making material available online’ can include uploading material to a DTE for student access and use via password protected access such as:

• a shared drive/intranet (eg Microsoft 365)
• content or learning management systems (eg Moodle, Blackboard or Equella)
• to a closed class area on an education platform (eg Edmodo, Verso or Google Classroom).

A DTE is an online environment with features that enable students and teachers to store and engage with course content, manage course work, and explore material. Examples used in schools and TAFE include:

• learning management systems (eg Moodle, Blackboard, SIMON, Schoology, Schoolbox, SEQTA or Infrastructure Canvas)
• learning content management systems (eg Equella)
• closed class areas on an education platform (eg Edmodo, Verso or Google Classroom)
• password protected wikis
• portals
• interactive whiteboard galleries and media libraries
• password protected share drives.

‘Electronically transmitting’ includes emailing, streaming or using an electronic reticulation system to share material (eg libraries might have an electronic delivery system to transmit material centrally).

A communication does not include:

• displaying a website live in class for students to read
• bookmarking and sharing links to online articles or resources
• emailing links to online articles and resources, rather than emailing a PDF or word version of the resource.

These activities are not copyright activities and do not require a licence or permission.

How much of an artistic work or image can I copy and communicate under the Statutory Text and Artistic Works Licence?

The statutory licence allows you to copy the whole of an artistic work (eg photocopy a picture of an artwork from a textbook, print an image or graph from a website, or copy and paste an image from a website into a file to be displayed on an interactive white board).

Can I upload artistic works and images to our school’s DTE?

Teachers may upload artistic works and images to a DTE as long as, wherever possible, access to the content is restricted to staff and students.

We recommend that you:

• always label/attribute any artistic works or images you copy or communicate under the Statutory Text and Artistic Works Licence
• remove any artistic works or images that are no longer required by deleting and archiving.

Stock images

Sometimes, teachers or curriculum and e-learning developers use images from the Internet under the mistaken belief that they are automatically free for schools to use because they were either purchased as a “royalty free” image (eg from Getty, Shutterstock, iStock etc) or downloaded from a freely available internet site (eg a social media site such as Facebook or Pinterest, a company website, and even online store catalogues).

In many cases, however, schools pay under the Statutory Text and Artistic Licence when this content is used in teaching materials. The costs are significant, and Australian schools are currently paying millions of dollars a year to use freely available internet content.

We recommend that teachers consider using some of the millions of images that have been licensed under Creative Commons instead. For more information see Where to find CC licensed images.

Copyright exceptions

Teachers may also be able to rely on one of the copyright exceptions when copying artistic works or images for specific purposes.

Fair dealing

Teachers and students may be able to copy and communicate artworks and images under the fair dealing for research and study exception. Teachers will only be able to rely on the fair dealing exception in limited circumstances, including because they can only rely on it for their own research and study and not the research and study of their students.  However, students using artworks or images as part of their study will generally be able to rely on the fair dealing exception of research and study.

For more information see Copyright Exceptions.

 Disability exceptions

If you are copying or communicating artistic works or images in order to make them accessible to a student with a disability, you may be able to do this under the disability exceptions.

For more information see Disability Exceptions  for schools or Disability Exceptions for TAFE.

Exam copying

Teachers are allowed to copy and communicate artistic works and images for use in online and hardcopy exams. This exception does not extend to practice papers.  You can only rely on this exception to copy and communicate text for actual exams and assessments.

For more information see Copying for Exams.

Other useful exceptions

Teachers and students can make a painting, drawing or take a photograph of a permanently displayed outdoor sculpture or building that is situated in a public place.

They can also use an artwork in the background of a film, provided the use is incidental and does not form part of the main action being presented in the film.

Attribution

Teachers should always attribute the work they copy and communicate, whether it is owned by their school, TAFE or educational body or someone else. For information on how to attribute artistic works and images see Labelling and Attributing.

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Updated 16 March 2022

The Statutory Text and Artistic Works Licence is set out in s 113P of the Copyright Act.  It allows schools and TAFE to make multiple copies of literary, dramatic, musical and artistic works for educational purposes. It also allows schools to communicate copies of those works.

The Statutory Text and Artistic Works Licence ensures that copyright owners are paid for the educational uses of these works. The relevant governing body of your school or TAFE (eg the state or territory department of education, Catholic diocese, independent school administering body or TAFE institution) pays licence fees to the Copyright Agency, which is the collecting society that administers this licence.

All government schools and most non-government schools and TAFE institutes are covered by the Statutory Text and Artistic Works Licence.

See Statutory and Voluntary Licences for further information.

Although the Statutory Text and Artistic Works Licence technically applies to musical works (scores and sheet music), a separate licence has been negotiated with APRA AMCOS (the collecting society that represents the owners of copyright in musical works) to cover the use of scores and sheet music in schools.  The majority of schools rely on this licence instead of the statutory licence. For further information see the Schools Music Licence.

This information sheet explains how schools and TAFE institutes can use literary, dramatic and artistic works under the Statutory Text and Artistic Works Licence.

What are literary, dramatic and artistic works?

Literary works include hardcopy and digital novels, text books, picture books, as well as documents such as PDFs or text on webpages. Dramatic works include plays and screenplays. In this information sheet we refer to literary and dramatic works as “Text”.

Artistic works include paintings, photos, drawings, even moulds or casts for sculptures. These can be hardcopy works or online works such as photographs, charts or other images on a webpage.

For information about how copyright law characterises different types of material, please see: Copyright – A General Overview.

What uses of text and artistic Works does the Statutory Text and Artistic Works Licence allow?

Schools and TAFE institutes may copy and communicate text and artistic works in both hardcopy and electronic form.

Any copies and communications must be made for educational purposes. This includes:

• • teaching purposes (such as photocopying to hand to students in class)
  • using as part of a course of study (eg uploading material to a digital teaching environment (DTE) for access by a particular class
  • making and retaining copies for library use (eg as a teaching resource).

The statutory licence does not allow:

• • copying and communicating computer programs
  • copying or communicating sound recordings, audio-visual material, podcasts or internet streaming services
  • the use of text and artistic works for purposes other than educational uses (eg for the promotional purposes of the school).

What is copying?

All forms of hard copies and digital/electronic copies can be covered by the Statutory Text and Artistic Works Licence. Copying includes photocopying, scanning, printing, downloading works from a webpage or cloud storage drive, or saving a copy to a DTE, personal computer, USB drive or personal cloud storage service.

What is communicating?

A communication under the Statutory Text and Artistic Works Licence involves making copyright material available online or electronically transmitting copyright material.

‘Making material available online’ can include uploading material to a website or a DTE for student access and use via password protected access such as:

• • a shared drive/intranet (eg Microsoft 365)
  • content or learning management systems (eg Moodle, Blackboard or Equella)
  • to a closed class area on an education platform (eg Edmodo, Verso, Google Classroom or iTunes U).

‘Electronically transmitting’ includes emailing, streaming or using an electronic reticulation system to share material (eg libraries might have an electronic delivery system to transmit material centrally).

A communication does not include:

• • displaying a website live in class for students to read
  • bookmarking and sharing links to online articles or resources
  • emailing links to online articles and resources.

These activities are not copyright activities and do not require a licence or permission.

How much of a text work can I copy or communicate under the Statutory Text and Artistic Works Licence?

Many teachers will be familiar with the ‘10% or one chapter’ rule – a concept that a teacher can make a copy of 10% of a book (or one chapter) to use in teaching. This concept is taken from an older version of the statutory licence which contained a number of specific copyright rules.  The old set of copying rules were very confusing for teachers, and many were not practical for modern teaching practices. For example, there was one set of copying limits for hardcopy works and a different set of copying limits for electronic works.  The rules also applied the same quantity limits to all forms of text works, with the ‘10% or one chapter rule’ applying equally whether a teacher wanted to copy from a best-selling novel or a free information sheet published by a government department.

The old version of the statutory licence was replaced in 2017 with the current Statutory Text and Artistic Works Licence as part of changes made by the Copyright Amendment (Disability and Other Measures) Act 2017. This new form of the statutory licence is designed to be a simpler system for schools and TAFEs, as well as providing more flexibility than the previous version of the licence regarding what teachers are permitted to copy under the licence. The 10% or one chapter rule no longer appears in the Statutory Text and Artistic Works Licence.

The current version of the Statutory Text and Artistic Works Licence does not contain any rules at all about how much of a work a teacher is allowed to copy or communicate. Instead, it takes a principles-based approach, allowing teachers to copy and communicate text and artistic works as long as the amount copied or communicated “does not unreasonably prejudice the legitimate interests” of the copyright owner.

This means that there is no longer a ‘one size fits all’ approach to what teachers can copy and communicate under the statutory licence. Instead, there is flexibility to allow teachers to copy more than 10% or one chapter for certain types of works, or where to do so would cause no harm to copyright owners.

It is important to remember that copyright owners receive licence fees for copies and communications made by teachers under the Statutory Text and Artistic Works Licence, so are compensated for these educational uses. The purpose of the “unreasonable prejudice” test is to make sure that the amount of a work that is copied or communicated under the statutory licence does not cause unreasonable harm to the copyright owner.

This means that for many works commonly used by teachers with students (for example those that are currently “in print” and currently available to buy), only portions of the work can be copied for educational purposes under the licence. For other works, such as older ‘out of print’ works, or works made available on the internet without any expectation of payment, teachers may be able to copy more (or even all) of a work.

How do I know if something will cause ‘unreasonable prejudice’ to a copyright owner?

A good way to think about this is to ask whether your educational use will cause harm to the copyright owner, even though the use is covered by a licence fee.  For example, if the amount of a textbook that you copy would mean your school or students in your class no longer need to purchase that textbook, in circumstances where they would normally be asked to buy it, that may cause harm to the copyright owner.

The old ‘10% or one chapter rule’ is still a useful guide in making this assessment for many resources that are still ‘in print’ (ie, you can still buy them).  However the licence is now flexible enough to enable you to copy or communicate more than 10% or one chapter, as long as the use doesn’t unreasonably harm the copyright owner of the work being copied or communicated.

Whether the use would unreasonably harm the copyright owner of the work will usually need to be considered on a case by case basis, however we have included here some common scenarios to help teachers to understand when their educational uses of text and artistic works will be permitted by the Statutory Text and Artistic Works Licence.

Consider these examples:

1. Ms Brown is reading a copy of ‘The Rainbow Serpent’ by Dick Roughsey to her Year 2 class. This is a beloved book which is in print, and available to buy from a range of Australian booksellers and online. She wishes to photocopy a page from the book for each student in her class to use in a classroom project.

Copying one page of the book for each student in the class will be permitted by the Statutory Text and Artistic Works Licence. This is a good example of where the ‘10% or one chapter’ rule is still a useful guide’ – as the book is still available for sale, Ms Brown should not photocopy the entire book for her students.

2. Mr Black teaches Year 12 English and is studying some Judith Wright poems with his class. He wants to upload one academic article to the DTE for his class to access from home in preparation for an upcoming test.

The statutory licence enables teachers to copy a journal article for educational purposes, and upload the article to a DTE.  Copying one article from a publication or journal is permitted, and it can be uploaded access to the DTE as long as access to the DTE is restricted to staff and students. If Mr Black wants to copy more than one article from the same issue of a journal, he must consider whether doing so would cause unreasonable prejudice to the copyright owner, in this case the publisher of the journal.

3. Ms Rose has ordered a class set of textbooks for her class to use for the term of study. The books did not arrive in time for week 1 of term so she wishes to copy the first chapters of the library copy of the book for the students to use until the books arrive.

As Ms Rose has bought the class set for her students use, copying more than one chapter will not cause unreasonable prejudice to the copyright owner, or interfere with sales of the class set. However, it is a good idea to:

• • Only copy what is needed by the students on a week by week basis until the books arrive.
  • Ask the students to return the copies made each week, and destroy them when the students have finished using them.

4. Mr White has bought a new book of historical fiction to read over the summer holidays. He enjoyed it so much he wants to copy a few chapters of the book to use with his Year 7 history class.

Mr White should only copy one chapter of the book for use with his students. As this is a newly published book, there is a high risk that to copy more than one chapter of the book for students may impact on the market for the sale of that book.

5. Ms Teal wants to make photocopies of song lyrics that she has found in a music book to hand out to her year six students.

Ms Teal can copy the lyrics for a whole song under the Statutory Text and Artistic Works Licence.

6. Ms Green has found a great blog site full of free teaching resources. She wants to download a free PDF of a maths exercise to use with her class.

As the resources are made freely available on the internet it is possible to download the whole PDF and copy all of it for the class.

7. Mr Grey wants to photocopy a research report published in PDF format by an economic consulting firm on their website to give to his Year 11 economic class as part of a unit of study.

As the report is made freely available on the internet, with no expectation of payment from the copyright holder (usually the economics consulting firm), it is possible to copy the entire report under the statutory licence.

8. Ms Stone has an old geography textbook that is no longer commercially available. She wants to copy several chapters for her students to read as part of a unit of inquiry.

If it is not possible to buy a copy of a textbook, Ms Stone can copy more than one chapter, or even the whole of the book. A good principle to apply is that a teacher can copy more than 10% or one chapter of a book if it is no longer commercially available (i.e you can no longer buy it within a reasonable time at an ordinary commercial price).

If you are unsure of whether the amount of a work you wish to copy or communicate is permitted, you can contact the National Copyright Unit.

Can I ever copy more than 10 per cent or 1 chapter of a text work that is still ‘in print’ or available to buy?

Although the Statutory Text and Artistic Works Licence no longer sets specific copying limits, the ‘10% or one chapter rule’ is still a good rule of thumb for what will be okay to copy or communicate for commercially available or ‘in print’ works (eg books you can buy in a bookshop or by purchasing from an online store such as the Kindle Store or Google Play Books).

It will be possible to copy more than 10% percent or a chapter of an ‘in print’ work in limited circumstances. However you should take great care that the amount that you are copying would not unreasonably prejudice the copyright owner.

Here are two examples where it would be okay to copy more than 10% or one chapter of an ‘in print’ book:

• If you have bought class copies of the book and they do not arrive in time. For example, if you needed to copy chapter one for students to use in week 1 of term, and the books had not arrived by week 2, it would be possible to make a copy of chapter two for students to use. You should require the students to return the week one copies, and make sure those copies are destroyed when they are no longer needed by the class.
• If a student is unwell and unable to attend face to face lessons for an extended period of time, it may be possible to scan more than one chapter of a book that they would have otherwise accessed in class to give to that student if they cannot access the book another way. Any copy should be password protected and destroyed/deleted when the student returns to school.

What can I copy from newspapers, anthologies and journals?

The previous version of the statutory licence allowed teachers to make a copy of one article from a journal, or a copy of more than one article if the articles were on the same subject matter.

This rule is still a useful starting point. Teachers can copy one article from a journal, newspaper or similar publication or one short story from a short story anthology for students without causing unreasonable prejudice to the copyright owner.

In deciding whether copying more than one article from the same publication is allowed, you should consider:

• how much of the whole publication are you copying?
• is your copying tied to the educational purpose you need? (eg if you are discussing the implications of the Commonwealth Budget, it would be reasonable to copy more than one article on this issue from a newspaper the next day)
• will your copying replace a sale for the copyright owner? (eg copying and distributing the majority of the articles from a special issue of a magazine could impact on sales of that magazine).

What about artistic works?

The statutory licence allows you to copy the whole of an artistic work (eg photocopy a picture of an artwork from a textbook, print an image or graph from a website, or copy and paste an image into a file to be displayed on an interactive white board).

Can I upload materials to our school’s DTE?

A DTE is an online environment with features that enable students and teachers to store and engage with course content, manage course work, and explore material.  Examples used in schools include:

• learning management systems (such as Moodle, Blackboard, SIMON, Schoology, Schoolbox, SEQTA or Canvas)
• learning content management systems (such as EQUELLA)
• closed class areas on an education platform (Edmodo, Verso, Google Classroom or iTunesU)
• password protected wikis
• portals
• interactive whiteboard galleries and media libraries
• password protected share drives.

Teachers may copy and communicate text and artistic works into a DTE as long as:

• the amount copied and communicated does not unreasonably prejudice the copyright owner (see above)
• access to the content is restricted to staff and students.

How should I restrict access to teachers and students in a DTE?

Wherever technically possible, access to material copied and communicated under the Statutory Text and Artistic Works Licence must be restricted (eg by use of a password) to teachers and students. You must ensure that the material is not able to be accessed by the general public. It is, however, permissible to allow parents to have access to enable them to assist students with homework etc.

Can teacher librarians, library and administration staff use the Statutory Text and Artistic Works Licence?

Yes. All staff in a school or TAFE may copy and communicate text and artistic works, as long as the copying or communication is for the educational purposes of the school or TAFE.

Labelling copies made under the Statutory Text and Artistic Works Licence

Content that is made available to students under the Statutory Text and Artistic Works Licence should, wherever possible, include a label containing sufficient information to enable Copyright Agency to identify the owner of copyright. For example: the name of the author, title, publisher, edition or date of publication, and ISBN or ISSN. It’s not enough to include just the name of the author as the author is often different from the copyright owner. If you are copying from a website, you should include the full URL.

There is no longer any legal requirement to include a notice stating that copyright material has been copied or communicated under the statutory licence. However it is still recommended best practice to include the following notice where this is reasonably practicable. This is in order to limit the potential liability of the TAFE/School in the event that a student uses the content in a way that may infringe copyright:

[WARNING] This material has been copied [and communicated to you] in accordance with the statutory licence in section 113P of the Copyright 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

 

For a copy of this notice see  Section 113P Notice.

A practical way of including this notice to electronic material is to insert a link to the notice from the attribution information. This would mean that the notice would have to be uploaded onto one spot on the repository and be linked to when required.

Where it is not possible to include a link to the notice from the attribution information, the notice could be displayed (flashed) on the screen as the user logs into the password protected share drive or intranet or content or learning management system or cloud storage. If using this approach, you should modify the notice to make clear that it applies to only some of the material on the repository:

[WARNING] Some of this material may have been copied [and communicated to you] in accordance with the statutory licence in section 113P of the Copyright 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.

 

For a copy of this notice see  Section 113P Notice.

If you are presenting a PowerPoint that includes material copied under the Statutory Text and Artistic Works Licence, you could include an introductory or closing slide containing this notice.

Attribution

We recommend that you always label/attribute any material you copy under the Statutory Text and Artistic Works Licence that is used in teaching materials.  For further information please see our Labelling and Attributing information sheets for schools  and TAFEs.

Remuneration Notice

Educational institutions are required to give Copyright Agency a remuneration notice before they can rely on the Statutory Text and Artistic Works Licence.   All TAFE and school jurisdictions have provided the Copyright Agency with the required remuneration notice.

Sampling Surveys

Under the current agreements, schools/TAFE institutes are required to take part in sampling surveys. This allows the Copyright Agency to set licence fees and calculate distribution rates for copyright owners. Under the sampling system, schools/TAFE institutes are not required to keep a record of their usage of copyright material unless they are included in a sampling survey. Schools/TAFE institutes included in a sampling survey are required to record all uses of copyright material over a certain period of time.

 

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Updated 28 July 2022

Teachers regularly use music for educational or other purposes. They may want to copy sheet music for students or perform music live. Or, they may want to record a live performance of music by students or play a sound recording in class or at a school or TAFE event.

What do we mean by music?

When we talk about music, we are referring to both musical works (ie the score and/or the lyrics of a song, which is what you see on sheet music) and sound recordings (ie recorded versions of musical works).

A musical work can be the score, or both the score and lyrics. The copyright owner of the score may be different to the copyright owner of the lyrics. Note that if you are just copying lyrics, they will be considered as text for the purposes of the Statutory Text and Artistic Works Licence.

A sound recording might be a recording of the score only, or of both the score and lyrics. Examples of sound recordings are Apple or Spotify tracks, MP3 files, vinyl, CDs, audio cassettes, reel to reel tapes and any other method for recording and storing sounds.

When you use a sound recording, you need permission to use both the musical work and the sound recording of that musical work. Generally, the composer or music publisher owns copyright in the musical work, and the record label owns copyright in the sound recording. If you are only reproducing or performing the musical work (eg by playing the music with an instrument or singing the song yourself), you only need permission from the owner of copyright in the musical work.

How do schools and TAFEs use music?

Some of the ways schools or TAFEs may use music include:

• performing musical works (eg students singing songs or playing instruments in the classroom or at assemblies)
• communicating musical works (eg emailing the score and/or lyrics of a song)
• displaying musical works in class (e.g. on an interactive whiteboard)
• copying musical works (eg photocopying sheet music for the school choir)
• playing sound recordings (eg playing a sound recording in the classroom or at a school event)
• communicating sound recordings (eg uploading a recording of a school concert at which a sound recording was played to the school’s password protected digital learning environment (DTE), or uploading a recording of a TAFE concert to the TAFE learning management system)
• making recordings (including audio and video recordings) of school performances of musical works and sound recordings
• making a copy of sound recordings (eg making a compilation of tracks on a laptop, CD or USB to play at a school dance performance).

How are schools and TAFEs permitted to use music?

Schools and TAFE can do some activities using musical works and sound recordings under free exceptions in the Copyright Act, and for some other activities they can rely on voluntary licences that most schools and all TAFEs (excluding Victorian TAFEs) have entered into with the collecting societies that represent music composers and record labels.

Schools have entered into a Schools Music Licence, which allows schools to copy and share musical works and sound recordings in certain circumstances  All government and most Catholic and independent schools, are covered by the Schools Music Licence. You can check whether you are covered by the music agreements by contacting your school authority.

All TAFEs (excluding Victorian TAFES) have entered into a TAFE Music Licence which allows TAFEs to copy and share musical works and sound recordings in certain circumstances.

Performing musical works live or playing sound recordings

In class

Teachers and students at schools or TAFEs can perform musical works live or play sound recordings in the classroom under a special copyright exception (section 28 of the Copyright Act) provided it is:

• in the course of education and is not for profit
• the people in the audience or class are giving or receiving instruction or are directly connected with the place where instruction is given (i.e if parents or guardians are in the audience, schools and TAFEs may not be able to rely on this exception – however see below for what can be done under the Schools Music Licence instead).

Teachers can upload sound recordings to a school intranet or DTE in order to play them in class, but they should remove them from the DTE, or disable student access to the sound recordings, as soon as the class is over.

Examples of what teachers and students can do in reliance on this exception include:

• singing musical works and performing musical works using instruments in class
• playing a sound recording in class in any format (eg digital music from Spotify or Apple music, Google Play Store, CD) using a DTE or interactive whiteboard
• playing a film (DVD or online film) in class which contains a musical work and or sound recording using a DVD player or DTE.

For further information schools should see Performance and Communication of Copyright Material in Class. TAFE institutes should see Performance and Communication of Copyright Material in TAFE Classes.

Schools can also rely on the Schools Music Licence, together with an exception under section 106(1)(b) of the Copyright Act and an interim agreement with PPCA to perform and play music in the classroom when parents, guardians or members of the school community are in attendance, or to invite a performer from outside the school to come into the classroom to perform for the students.

TAFEs can also rely on the TAFE Music Licence to perform and play music in the classroom when family members or members of the TAFE community are in attendance.

For non-teaching purposes

Schools often want to perform musical works live or play sound recordings outside the classroom context. The Schools Music Licence, together with an exception under section 106(1)(b) of the Copyright Act and an interim agreement with PPCA, allows schools to perform musical works live and play sound recordings for a range of purposes that a school undertakes as part of its usual activities (eg providing educational or religious services for staff, students and members of the school community as part of normal school activities, engaging with members of the school community, promoting students work and school events such as school concerts, dances or formals, sports days and fairs).

Schools can charge admission fees to performances of music as long as the proceeds from the fees mostly go to the school or a registered charity.

Schools can perform some songs from a musical, but, to perform an entire musical, schools cannot rely on the Schools Music Licence and will need to obtain permission from the copyright owner of the musical.

If a secondary school is performing music in a dramatic context (eg a performance where there is a storyline, characters or a ballet) it cannot charge admission and advertise the event outside the school community.

The licence does not allow schools to perform musical works and play sound recordings for commercial activities.

The TAFE Music Licence allows TAFEs to perform or play musical works and sound recordings (eg at TAFE events or as background music in the TAFE) on the TAFE campus or grounds, or at a venue the TAFE is using for a TAFE event.

The licence does not allow TAFEs to perform musical works and play sound recordings for commercial activities.

Copying sheet music

The Schools Music Licence allows schools to make multiple copies of sheet music for school purposes, including delivering school music lessons and ensemble programs, provided they do not make more copies than reasonably required for the relevant school purpose. The licence tops up the rights that schools have to copy sheet music under the Statutory Text and Artistic Works Licence.

The TAFE sector has not entered into a sector wide agreement with APRA AMCOS in relation to the copying of sheet music, and TAFE institutes will need to check what licensing arrangements are in place for their institute or jurisdiction regarding copying of sheet music.

Under the Schools Music Licence, schools can:

• photocopy hardcopy sheet music
• make digital copies of print sheet music (ie scan to digital format)
• print copies of digital sheet music
• email PDF versions of digital sheet music
• upload copies of sheet music to a password protected or restricted access DTE.

Schools should not undertake ‘just-in-case’ copying, such as digitising entire collections of print sheet music.

Schools can make as many copies of print or digital sheet music that the school considers is reasonably required for a relevant school purpose. However, the copies must be made from an original copy of the sheet music that the school or a teacher at the school owns. What this means is that the school first needs to purchase of a copy of the sheet music from an authorised publisher before they make any copies.

There are some other limits on the copies of sheet music that Schools can make under the School Music Licence. For example, a school:

• can only copy up to three songs from a Grand Right Work (eg words and music that has been written expressly for an opera, operetta, musical play, revue or pantomime), but it can make as many copies as it needs of the sheet music for each of those three songs. So, it could make copies of the sheet music for three songs from ‘Matilda the Musical’ for its students to sing. However, if a school wants to rehearse or perform an entire musical, it needs to obtain permission from the copyright owner of the musical
• can only copy a choral work that is longer than 20 minutes where the public performance of the choral work is validly licensed (e.g. the School has a obtained a licence to perform the choral work)
• cannot make copies of sheet music for students’ private music tuition.
• cannot make copies of sheet music where the lyrics have been changed or the music has been adapted.

The Schools Music Licence also extends to departments and administrative bodies making copies of sheet music in order to:

• deliver music lessons to students on behalf of a school (provided such lessons do not constitute private tuition)
• for use in ensemble programs that are organised by the administrative body or department and connected with the school.

The department or administrative body may only make copies of an original version of the sheet music (i.e. an original published copy of the sheet music owned by the administrative body on behalf of each school for which it is making copies).

Marking hardcopy and digital copies of sheet music

Under the Schools Music Licence, schools must do all they reasonably can to mark all hardcopy and digital copies of sheet music they make with the words “AMCOS LICENSED COPY”  and the following information:

• name of the school
• date copied
• the name of the owner of the original sheet music that was copied (e.g. if the school bought the original, the school or if it was a teacher, the teacher).

Live streaming school and TAFE events

Schools can live stream their school event, where musical works are performed (eg a live performance of a song by a school band or orchestra) and/or a sound recording is played, in real time from the school website, a social media platform (eg Facebook Live, YouTube) or a video conferencing platform (eg Zoom). In the case of social media platforms, schools can rely on the licences that APRA AMCOS and record labels have with the social medial platforms to communicate (ie make available) the stream on the platform.

If you are live streaming a performance where a musical work or sound recording is being played on social media, it is possible that the performance may be muted or blocked by the social media platform. For what to do if this happens, see ‘Blocking or muting of event on social media’ below.

TAFEs can also rely on the licences that APRA AMCOS and record labels have with the social medial platforms to live stream a TAFE event from the TAFE’s social medial platform (eg Facebook Live, YouTube) (although where musical works and sound recordings are played at the TAFE event the post may be muted or blocked by the social media platform. See ‘Blocking or muting of event on social media’ below’).

Making audio or video recordings of school and TAFE events

Under the Schools Music Licence, schools are able to make audio visual or audio only recordings of school events at which musical works are performed or  sound recordings are played.

All school event recordings, which include music, made by the school should display the following notice:

‘This recording has been made under a licence from AMCOS and ARIA for school purposes only’.

Schools can also authorise members of the school community (or a third party such as a commercial videographer), to make recordings of music performed at school events, provided this is either for the exclusive use of the school, or for private and domestic listening or viewing by members of the school community (eg parents, guardians and friends can make a video of a presentation night at which the school band played, or a videographer could make a recording for the school to use later in an end-of-year presentation).

TAFEs can record TAFE events where a musical work is performed live or a sound recording is played.

Uploading recordings of school and TAFE events, where a musical work or sound recording is being played, to social media

Schools can rely on the Schools Music Licence to upload recordings of their school events to the school’s official social media page on platforms such as Facebook and YouTube. In order to communicate (ie make available online) those recordings from those social media pages, schools can rely on the licences that APRA AMCOS and record labels have with the social media platforms.

Likewise, TAFE institutes can rely on the TAFE Music Licence to upload recordings of TAFE events to the TAFE’s official social media page on social media platforms such as Facebook and YouTube. In order to communicate (ie make available online) those recordings from those social media pages, TAFEs can rely on the licences that APRA AMCOS and record labels have with social media platforms.

Where Schools and TAFEs upload recordings to social media the post may still be muted by the social media platform, or the school or TAFE may be asked to take it down.

Blocking or muting of events on social media

Music recording companies (ie record labels) and some music publishers use software to identify potentially infringing content on social media platforms, such as Facebook. When a school or TAFE institute live streams a performance where a musical work or sound recording is being played, or uploads a recording of a school event where a musical work or sound recording is played, this software may alert Facebook or other social media platforms to mute the recording or send a takedown notice to the school or TAFE institute. If you are concerned about a live stream or recording being muted or your school or TAFE being issued with a take-down notice, contact the National Copyright Unit. Alternatively, you may want to consider uploading the recording to your school or TAFE website or password protected digital teaching environment or intranet.

What else can be done with audio or video recordings of school or TAFE events

Schools can also do the following with their recordings of schools event(s):

• upload the recording to the school website
• upload the recordings to a password protected school server, intranet or DTE and make this available to parents, guardians and students. For example, if parents and guardians are unable to attend an assembly or graduation day, the school could send them a link to the recording on the school’s password protected intranet and allow them to download a copy for their private use
• upload the recording to an app that is being used by the school for internal school communications to members of the school community, such as Schoolbag, Seesaw, Compass and SZapp. This is limited to apps being used by the school for internal school communications, and would not include apps like Snapchat or TikTok
• email/message a copy or make a physical copy of the recording (eg copy it on to a USB) and distribute it (for a no cost or on a cost-recovery basis) to members of the school community (eg students and parents or guardians)
• provide a digital or physical copy of the recording to:
  • members of the school community (e.g. parents, guardians and staff)
  • other third parties, including other schools and administering bodies, to facilitate entry to events such as music competitions and festivals by students representing the school.
• stream a live communication of the school event from the school’s website.

TAFEs can upload recordings of TAFE events to the TAFE website, apps, and learning management system or email them to students/ provide physical or digital copies of those recordings to students/families.

Making audio or video recordings that are not of school or TAFE events

 As well as recording school events at which musical works are performed or sound recordings are played, schools are also able to make recordings that are not of school events as long as they are being made for school purposes. Schools can:

• make videos or presentations (eg classroom PowerPoint slides, presentations for assemblies or functions or end of year videos) in which musical works or sound recordings are playing in the background
• record someone playing a musical work (eg record a student playing the violin)
• copy sound recordings (eg download tracks from a streaming service, such as Spotify, or format shift a CD to MP3):
  • for the educational purposes of the school (eg to play in class relevant to material being studied, whether face-to-face or virtual) – this doesn’t extend to ‘just-in-case’ format shifting of whole CD collections
  • to use at a school event (eg to play at a school graduation); or
  • to include in another work, such as a video or presentation (e.g. to add as a soundtrack to a PowerPoint presentation or a commemorative video).

Schools should not undertake ‘just-in-case’ copying, such as format shifting entire CD collections.

All recordings and videos and presentations, which include music, made by the school should display the following notice:

‘This recording has been made under a licence from AMCOS and ARIA for school purposes only’.

TAFEs can:

• make a copy of a sound recording to play at a TAFE event (e.g. by downloading a sound recording from YouTube)
• incorporate sound recordings into other works (eg adding music to a video or PowerPoint presentation) as part of TAFE’s usual business activities.

What can schools and TAFEs do with audio or video recordings that are not of school/TAFE events

 Schools can do the following with:

(i) recordings of musical works (e.g. a recording of a student performing a musical work in class)

(ii) videos and presentations that include musical works (eg a PowerPoint presentation to which a recording of the school choir has been added)

that are not of school events, provided that what is being done is for a school purpose:

• upload them to the school website, password protected intranet or password protected DTE
• upload them to the school’s official social media page on platforms such as Facebook and YouTube
• email and/or message them to students and parents or guardians (the school community)
• upload them to an educational app that is being used by the school to communicate with the school community (ie Schoolbag, Seesaw, Compass and SZapp, but excluding apps like Snapchat and TikTok).

Schools can only upload sound recordings (eg a track the school has downloaded from a streaming service or a CD that the school has digitised) to an intranet, DTE, educational App, video conferencing application or school website where it is password protected and only made available to members of the school community.

Schools can only do the following with videos and presentations that are not of school events and which contain sound recordings (eg a video of the school athletics carnival highlights to which a Spotify track has been added as a soundtrack), provided that what is being done is for a school purpose:

• upload the recording to the school website, password protected intranet or password protected DTE
• email and/or message the recording to students and parents or guardians (the school community)
• upload the recording to an educational app that is being used by the school to communicate with the school community (ie Schoolbag, Seesaw, Compass and SZapp, but excluding apps like Snapchat and TikTok).

If the video, presentation or audio only recording contains a commercially available sound recording, it must not be uploaded to social media (e.g. if a school downloads a track from Spotify and adds it to a video it has made of students during Book Week, it cannot upload the video to its Facebook page).

TAFE institutes can upload videos and presentations containing musical works or sound recordings to the TAFE website, apps or the TAFE the learning management system, and they can email them or provide physical copies to students, staff or members of the TAFE community for their private and domestic use. TAFEs can also upload videos and presentations that include musical works to the TAFE’s official social media page. However, if the video or presentation contains a commercially available sound recording, it must not be uploaded to social media (e.g. if a TAFE downloads a track from Spotify and adds it to a video it’s made of a TAFE open day, it cannot upload the video to its Facebook page).

Sale of recordings made by schools

Schools may sell any of the recordings they make:

• to another school, provided that the sale price is no more than needed to cover the costs of creating the recording.
• to members of the school community for their private and domestic listening and/or viewing, provided the sale price is no more than what is needed to cover the costs of creating the recording, including, any costs staging a school event comprised in the recording (i.e. a school could sell recordings of a school event to recoup some of the costs in staging the school event but cannot sell the recordings in order to make a profit).

Summary of how schools can share recordings

This table summarises how schools are permitted to share live streams of school events, school event recordings, videos or presentations that include music and audio-only recordings under the Schools Music Licence.

Activity		Email or message	Password protected DTE	School website or educational app	Social media
Live stream of school event
Recording of school event (audio or audio-visual)
Video or presentation	to which a recording of a musical work has been added (eg school makes its own recording
	to which a sound recording has been added
Recordings for school purposes that are not of a school event	of a musical work
	of a sound recording

 

Copyright exceptions

Teachers may also be able to rely on one of the copyright exceptions when copying musical works or sound recordings for specific purposes.  There are a number of these exceptions which are listed below.

Playing sound recordings in public

Schools are able to play sound recordings in public. For independent and Catholic schools, this is under section 106 of the Copyright Act. For government schools, it is under an interim licence from PPCA which permits the use of sound recordings in connection with the activities of the school. Please note, however, that the public performance of any musical works embodied in the sound recordings must be done in accordance with the Schools Music Licence.

Fair dealing

Teachers and students may be able to copy and communicate some musical works and sound recordings under the fair dealing exception for research or study. Teachers will only be able to rely on the fair dealing exception in limited circumstances (ie it must be for their own research or study and not the research or study of their students), but students using musical works and sound recordings as part of their study will generally be able to rely on the fair dealing exception for research or study.

For more information see Copyright Exceptions.

Disability exceptions

If you copy or communicate musical works or sound recordings in order to make them accessible to a student with a disability, you may be able to do this under the disability exceptions.

For more information on the disability exceptions see Disability Access Exceptions.

Exam copying

Teachers are allowed to copy and communicate musical works and sound recordings for use in online and hard copy exams.

For more information see Copying for Exams.

Flexible dealing

If you can’t rely on the music licence, the licence with PPCA or any of the copyright exceptions to use musical works or sound recordings, you may, in limited circumstances, be able to rely on the flexible dealing exception.

For example, a teacher may be able to:

• prepare an arrangement of a musical work for students to perform in a music class when they cannot buy the arrangement they need
• format shift sound recordings from vinyl, cassette or CD into digital format such as mp3.

For more information see Flexible Dealing.

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