17. Copyright for research and study

The following information serves as a guideline only and does not in anyway constitute legal advice.

Copyright is covered by the Copyright Act 1968. There have also been recent amendments to protect digital material in the Copyright Amendment (Digital Agenda) Act 2000.


What is covered by copyright?

Material covered by copyright includes written material, whether in English or another language, paintings, musical works, databases, digital documents, computer programmes, television programmes, websites and sound recordings such as recorded lectures. Copyright protection is automatic from the time a work is created. It does not have to be published to be protected by copyright. The purpose of copyright is to protect the copyright owner.

What you can copy

You infringe copyright if you copy without the copyright owner's permission. Copying includes photocopying, scanning hard copies, copying videos or CDs, digitising print material, downloading from the internet or in any other way communicating digital material.

However, for the purposes of research and study, there are provisions for copying in the Copyright Act, provided your copying is fair.

What is fair?
  • reproducing text material :
    10% of the number of pages or 1 chapter if the work is divided into chapters
  • reproducing digital material:
    1 chapter or 10% of the number of words
  • reproducing journal or magazine articles :
    one article per issue (reproducing more than one article per issue is only permitted if those articles relate to a specific topic)
  • if the book is out of print, out of stock and not being republished, 100% of the text may be copied

Some things you cannot do

You cannot copy more than what is deemed fair under the Copyright Act . You can only make one copy for yourself. You cannot copy for another person. Generally, you cannot copy to another person, such as in an email attachment, material that you have downloaded from the internet.

Further information is available from:
Australian Copyright Council
PO Box 1986, Strawberry Hills NSW 2021
http://www.copyright.org.au