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What you can do under the Act

Under the Copyright Act 1968, there are provisions for limited copying and communicating works without infringing copyright. The most relevant of these to the university environment are:

Fair Dealing - Staff and students can rely on fair dealing for copying for themselves, as long as the amount may be deemed to be fair and it for the following purposes:

  • research or study
  • criticism or review
  • the reporting of news, or
  • professional legal advice.

The Copyright Act specifically provides that it is a fair dealing for the purposes of research or study to make a single copy of a journal article, one chapter or 10% of a book of ten or more pages, or 10% of the number of words in a work that is in electronic form.

See the Fair dealing information sheet by the Australian Copyright Council.

Insubstantial amounts - for educational purposes, it is not infringing to reproduce or communicate:

  • one or two pages of a literary or dramatic work which is hardcopy form; or
  • if the literary or dramatic work has more than 200 pages, then no more than 1% of the pages; or
  • no more than 1% of the words in the work if the work is in electronic form.

Multiple copies may be made and distributed to a class, however this exception cannot be relied on more than once in a 14 day period in relation to different parts of the one work.
This exception does not apply to artistic or musical works.

Statutory Licences - Voluntary agreements between the Collecting Agencies and the university. CQUniversity is a party to two agreements:

  • Part VA of the Copyright Act - Screenrights Agreement allows unlimited copying and communication of television and radio broadcasts for educational institutions.

  • Part VB of the Copyright Act - CAL Agreement allows limited copying and communication of print and graphic works for educational institutions.

Study guides, subject readers and material published on line via the library's CRO must be done in accordance with the limits set out in this agreement. See Guidelines for details.