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This information sheet was created in December 2020 to provide up-to-date copyright guidance to schools for the 2021 school year to manage copyright liability risks due to digital uses. There were some special copyright licences negotiated for the 2020 school year in light of COVID-19, which expired at the end of 2020, and the ongoing ability to rely on the flexible copyright exception will depend on whether or not a State, school or student is in lockdown or isolation. As a result, do not assume that just because teachers were allowed to teach using copyright content with technologies such as Zoom during COVID-19 means that these activities are permitted when schools have resumed face-to-face learning.

Detailed information on what is and isn't permitted here:

Remote Online Learning

Specifics

• Films and videos from a range of sources including Netflix, YouTube, Stan, iTunes or Apple TV
• Free-to-air tv and content made available online such as ABC iView
• Corporate or educational videos
• DVDs
• Advertisements/trailers
• Computer games
• Radio and podcasts

What you can do

Under a free exception in the Copyright Act (section 28) for films, and under the Statutory Broadcast Licence for TV and radio broadcasts, teachers can use copyright material for their classes, for example:

• Playing sound recordings and films in class for educational purposes
• Making films and broadcasts available online for students
• Linking or embedding films or broadcasts for students

The fine print

• Playing films and other material outside of class or for non-educational purposes such as fundraising activities, school camps, etc. is not covered by the same licence - it is permitted under the Co-Curricular licence which most but not all schools subscribe to
• Material shared online must be password protected and only accessible by the people who need it, and must be removed once the educational use has completed
• It is essential that films played in schools are obtained from legitimate sources
• Copying films is allowed in limited circumstances under the fair dealing  exception

For more information, see the following pages:

Films and Videos

Films: Playing for Non-Educational Purposes

Playing Films, Television and Radio in Schools

Radio and Television Broadcasts

Podcasts

Copy: a reproduction of a literary, dramatic, musical or artistic work, including printing, photocopying, downloading/saving a copy to a personal computer/device/cloud space and saving a copy in a digital format.

Perform: any mode of visual or aural presentation, such as reading a story or poem, playing television programs or films, staging a performance of a play, or displaying a diagram or content from a website on a screen.

Communicate: making copyright material available online or electronically transmitting copyright material.

Specifics

• Books, textbooks and e-books
• Newspaper and magazine articles
• Websites
• Poetry and lyrics

What you can do

The Statutory Text and Artistic licence allows schools to copy and communicate text in both hard copy and electronic form, including:

• Photocopying hardcopy books, journals, newspapers or reports
• Scanning from hardcopy works
• Printing from electronic material such as websites or e-books
• Uploading material to a Digital Teaching Environment
• Making electronic copies of works (e.g. saving to disc)

The fine print

Under the statutory licence a reasonable portion of a work can be copied for educational purposes. There are no longer any hard and fast rules about how much of a work a teacher is allowed to copy or communicate, but the amount must "not unreasonably prejudice the legitimate interests" of the copyright owner.

A general guide of what would be considered a reasonable amount to copy would be:

• 10% or 1 chapter of a book (whichever is greater)
• One article in a journal

You can copy the whole work if

• It is unpublished
• It is not commercially available within a "reasonable time" at an ordinary price. As a general guide it is recommended that a "reasonable time" is six months for textbooks and thirty days for other material.

When it comes to websites, copying freely available internet materials for educational purposes will not cause harm to the owner and there is usually no expectation of payment, so generally it is fine to copy all of the material on a freely available internet resource.

For more information, see the following pages:

Text Material

Internet and Websites

Specifics

• Software
• Databases
• Apps

What you can do

Neither the Statutory Text and Artistic Licence (which permits must photocopying and electronic copying by educational institutions) or the flexible dealing exception of the Copyright Act apply to software such as apps. These products must be purchased, and you can only use them in ways and for purposes permitted by the terms of use that apply when you purchase the app.

Schools can purchase iTunes apps through Apple's Volume Purchase Program for Education, which is a simple way to buy and distribute apps in bulk for your school. Currently, there are no bulk-licencing arrangements for Android apps, however some educational apps may permit broad use within a school - you'll need to check the Terms of Use for that particular app.

More information: Apps in the Classroom

Under the organisational disability exception, schools can make accessible format copies for students with a disability (including learning difficulties such as dyslexia) if the copyright material is not commercially available in the format required by the student and with the features they require. This could include, for example, converting a book into Dyslexie font, 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. 

If only a small part of the work, such as one chapter of a book, needs to be copied, then this may come under the fair dealing exception and be permitted even if the material is commercially available.

For more information, click here.

Specifics

• Sheet music
• Sound recordings of music. e.g. Spotify or Apple Music tracks, MP3 files, CDs.

What you can do

Some of the ways schools may use music include:

• Performing musical works (e.g. students singing songs or playing instruments in class or at assemblies)
• Copying musical works (e.g. photocopying/scanning sheet music for students)
• Copying sound recordings (e.g. making a playlist for a school event)
• Playing sound recordings in class or at a school event
• Making recordings of school performances of music, and uploading to the school's password-protected digital learning environment

The fine print

• "Grand Rights Works" such as musicals and long choral works are not covered
• Admission fees to school performances must go back to the school or to charity
• Uploading recordings of school events which include music to social media such as Facebook is allowed, however it may still be taken down by the platform. 
• Uploading to apps such as Snapchat and TikTok is not covered.

For more information see the following pages:

Music

Performing and Communicating Music in Schools

Music in Religious Services

Specifics

• Paintings, drawings, graphics.
• Photography
• Maps, charts, diagrams
• Sculptures
• 3D printing

What you can do

The Statutory Text and Artistic licence allows teachers to copy the whole of an artistic work (e.g. photocopy a picture of an artwork from a book, print an image of graph from a website, or copy and paste an image into a file to be displayed on a projector screen).

The fine print

Teachers may upload artistic works and images to a digital learning environment as long as, wherever possible, access to the content is restricted to staff and students, and are removed once no longer required.

For more information, click here.

Material that has been created by you, your school or an educational body should be clearly labelled in order to avoid the possibility of the sector having to pay under the statutory licence to use the content. This is best done with a footer on each page. e.g. © Trinity College, 2020.

Content that is made available to students under the statutory licences should, wherever possible, include an attribution containing sufficient information to enable Copyright Agency or Screenrights to identify the owner of copyright.

For text and artistic works, you should include as much of the following as possible and/or practical:

• the author AND publisher names
• title, edition or date of publication
• ISBN or ISSN
• the full URL (if copying from a website)

If you are copying broadcasts, incude:

• the name of the program
• the channel it was copied from
• the date the copy was made
• the full URL (if copying from a website)

The attribution should be placed wherever practicable (e.g. below the content, in the footer of each relevant page or as an intro/ending credits page).

For more information, click here.

Teachers can rely on the Exam Copying Exception to use copyright material in exam questions, and students can rely on the same to use copyright material in their answers. This includes all types of material, e.g. images, text, videos, and applies to both paper and online exams.