Copyright
What is Copyright?
Copyright in Australia is governed by the Copyright Act 1968 (Cth) Copyright in Australia is an automatic right; it does not require registration. Copyright protects the original expression of ideas, and not the ideas themselves. It is probably the most prominent form of intellectual property. C...
When Does Copyright Exist?
Although there is no official registry or application process for copyright protection, there are requirements for copyright to exist. For copyright to exist there are six factors that must be present: Qualified person A qualified person must hold the Australian copyright. This includes: a body...
Copyright Owners
Copyright is a bundle of exclusive rights. These rights enable the copyright owner to make copies of the work and to protect it from unauthorised use. The type and extent of the rights differ according to the nature of the material. The general rule is that the author or creator of a work, and...
Australian Copyright Bodies
The National Library The Copyright Act requires that a copy of any library material published in Australia must be deposited with the National Library. Material which should be deposited includes books, periodicals, newspapers, sheets of letter press, sheets of music, maps, plans, charts and tab...
Infringement
Copyright will not protect you against independent creation of a similar work. Two people could write very similar songs, independently of each other, for example. To constitute an infringement a person uses all or a ‘substantial part’ of an author’s copyrighted material in one of the ways exclus...
International Copyright – the Berne Convention
The Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works was signed in 1886 with only a few member countries. This has grown to 165 member states. The Berne Convention, along with 23 other international conventions, is administered through the World Intellectual Property Organisatio...
Page last updated 13/12/2017