When you are a copyright owner

The Curtin Ownership of Intellectual Property Policy prescribes who owns the copyright in works created by Curtin staff and students. Generally Curtin students own the copyright in their work (including most theses), while the University owns the copyright in course materials and computer works created by staff and in some other cases (e.g. University-commissioned works). Mostly the University does not claim ownership of other copyright works created by staff but instead claims a royalty-free non-exclusive license to use them.

See more information about protecting your copyright for:

Students
Doctoral Thesis Authors
Staff

Protecting Your Copyright: Curtin Students

An original work created by a student is protected by copyright. At Curtin, the student is considered to be the copyright owner unless the University claims ownership under the terms of its Ownership of Intellectual Property Policy.

Staff members wishing to copy or communicate a student's work are required to obtain the student's permission. A sample Student Permission Form is provided; alternatively the student and the staff member may contact Legal Services, within the Legal and Compliance Office to have a "non-exclusive licence" drafted.

Students considering publication of their work should refer to assigning and licensing your copyright.

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Protecting Your Copyright: Curtin Doctoral Thesis Authors

At Curtin, students own the copyright in their theses, unless they agree otherwise in writing. (See the University's Ownership of Intellectual Property Policy).

Assigning and licensing copyright

It is important that thesis authors appreciate the difference between assigning and licensing their copyright.

This is particularly important for students considering having their thesis published.

In addition, thesis authors are asked to license the University to use their thesis in various ways, for example:

Students lodging their hardcopy thesis in the Library currently grant the University the right to "display or copy any or all of the thesis for use within Curtin University of Technology and make available the thesis to other persons or organisations being educational or industrial, for reference purposes or other legitimate educational purposes."
Students contributing a scanned version of their thesis to the Australasian Digital Thesis Program grant the University "an irrevocable, royalty free, non-exclusive licence for the University Library to use the material for the purposes of publication of the material in electronic format, including but not limited to, CD ROM and Internet usage".
Students contributing an electronic version of a thesis to the Australasian Digital Thesis Program grant to Curtin or its duly authorised agents the right to archive and to make available [the] thesis, [at a specified level of access] in whole or in part in the University Libraries in all forms of media, now or hereafter known."

Note that if you want to publish your thesis or include it in projects such as the Australasian Digital Thesis Program, you will also need to be particularly careful about including in it material for which you do not own the copyright. Ensure that you have the copyright owner's written permission to use their material.

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Protecting Your Copyright: Curtin Staff

As a general rule, Curtin owns the copyright in works created by a staff member in the course of their normal employment - amongst other things, these include computer works, course materials and other teaching resources. Curtin also generally retains copyright in works that have been commissioned or substantially funded by the University.

Where a Curtin staff member is the owner of the copyright, the University is entitled to access the work and retains a non-exclusive, royalty-free and irrevocable licence to publish and use the copyright work for its educational and research purposes.

Indicating your copyright ownership

There is no copyright application/registration form or any agency whom it is necessary to advise to formalize your copyright ownership. Protection is automatic.

Nevertheless it is a good idea to let users of your work know that it is copyright protected and that you are the copyright owner. The simplest method is to include the following information on any original works you create:

the copyright symbol ©
your name
the year of creation/publication of the work
your contact details and
any conditions of use you wish to impose.

Example:
"© Copyright - J. Bloggs - 2006
P.O. Box 1234, Perth, Western Australia 6155
j.bloggs@curtin.edu.au
All rights reserved. No reproduction without permission."

Traditionally, for hardcopy publications, the copyright notice appears on the inside of the front cover or within the first few pages of the publication. For material published electronically, it is common practice for the copyright notice to appear under its own heading, either at the start of the document or at the end.

Specifying conditions of use

When specifying "conditions of use" on a work, especially one which you do not intend to publish commercially, you should consider carefully what it is that you wish others to do if they want to reproduce your work, in full or in part.

You may want to give particular consideration to use by students, teachers and researchers. Under the "fair dealing" provisions of the Copyright Act, an individual will be able to make a single copy of a "reasonable portion" of your copyright work without payment or permission without infringing your rights provided it is for the purposes of research or study, criticism or review. Multiple copies of a reasonable portion of your work will also be able to be reproduced and communicated for teaching purposes by members of educational institutions under such arrangements as the Universities Australia statutory copyright licence schemes, subject to certain conditions and the payment of a licence fee to the relevant copyright agency.

Do you wish to permit use beyond any limits imposed through these schemes? Some possible options for Conditions of Use statements are given below. You may want to seek advice from the Legal and Compliance Office before deciding on conditions of use for your work.

"No part of this site may be reproduced, in whole or in part, without the specific written permission of the copyright owner first hand and obtained."
"Copying in excess of rights otherwise established under copyright law is permitted, without individual permission or payment of a fee, provided that copies are made or distributed for non-profit purposes and credit is given for the source. Abstracting with credit is permitted."
"Permission is hereby granted to use this document for personal use and in courses of instruction at educational institutions provided that the article is used in full and this copyright notice is reproduced. Any other usage is expressly prohibited without the express permission of the copyright owner. "
"This publication is protected by copyright and may be used as permitted by the Copyright Act 1968 provided appropriate acknowledgement of the source is published."

If you are considering making material for which you personally own the copyright available on the web, you may wish to consider one of the Creative Commons Licences which are being developed for Australia. These enable you to grant a more liberal suite of permitted uses than is mandated by the Copyright Act. For more information, consult: http://creativecommons.org/projects/international/

Assigning your copyright

Copyright owners can elect to assign their copyright to someone else, e.g. a publisher. Assignment means that ownership of the copyright is transferred. If you assign the copyright in your work to a publisher, unless otherwise negotiated, you will lose those rights. In addition, you may later find yourself in a position where you must seek copyright clearance from the publisher to use your work elsewhere, and in some cases pay a fee for that use. Hence you should consider carefully whether you wish to assign your rights in this way.

Curtin staff should note that, under the terms of the University's Ownership of Intellectual Property Policy, if they assign their copyright ownership to a commercial enterprise, they are required to notify the University in writing. Once copyright ownership has been assigned in this way, the University's licence to use the copyright work is terminated.

While to date it has been common practice for academics to assign their copyright to publishers, particularly in scientific and medical fields, this practice is now being questioned and, in many instances, varied. You may wish to consider other options, e.g. licensing your work, or retaining some of your rights, e.g. the right to deposit a pre-print or post-print copy in an electronic archive.

A useful guide to the current default policies of publishers regarding copyright, use of pre- and post-prints etc is available at SHERPA.

You are strongly advised to seek legal advice as to the terms and conditions of any publishing contract you are asked to sign.

If you have previously signed a publishing contract, you should obtain and keep a copy of it. If you now wish to have your work included in one of the emerging forms of scholarly publishing (e.g. digital repositories, web-publishing, e-print services, electronic archives), you will need to check (and possibly seek legal advice) regarding what, if any, rights you have previously assigned to a publisher and what, if any, you retained.

It may be relevant whether the assignment of rights occurred before 1 May 1969 (the date the present Copyright Act commenced) or before 4 March 2001 (the date the Copyright Amendment (Digital Agenda) Act came into effect).

(Note that moral rights remain with an author, even though he or she may have assigned copyright in a work to someone else. Generally, moral rights will last as long as the copyright in the work concerned.)

Licensing your copyright

If, instead of assigning your copyright to someone else, you license it, you can retain your copyright ownership while allowing the licensee the right to use your work in a particular way. For example, as a copyright owner you may license a company to publish your work in a hardcopy journal; if the publisher wishes to include the work in an electronic journal, they will need to negotiate with you, since you have retained ownership of the copyright in the work.

If you opt to license your work, do so in writing, in the form of a contract. Preferably legal advice should be sought.

Note that copyright can be licensed in various ways:

Exclusive licence
Under an exclusive licence the licensee is the only person who can use the work in the way covered by the licence. For example, in a book publishing agreement you might grant the publisher an exclusive licence to print and publish your novel; you are not entitled to license anyone else to publish the same novel during the period of the licence.

Non-exclusive licence
If you grant a non-exclusive right to do something with your work, you may continue to use your work in that way yourself and you can also grant other people non-exclusive licenses to use your work in that way. For example, if you granted a non-exclusive licence to a publisher to reproduce your illustrations in a book, you may also grant other publishers the same non-exclusive licence, and you may reproduce the illustrations yourself.

Implied licence
In some cases, permission from a copyright owner to use copyright material may be implied from the circumstances. This is the basis on which most "letters to the editor" are published in a newspaper - the publisher will in general be entitled to imply a licence from you to publish the letter.

If you submit work to a publisher on a speculative basis, you should take steps to ensure that the publisher does not go ahead and publish your work on the basis of an implied licence. To avoid this, you should include with any work you submit to a publisher on a speculative basis, a covering letter to the publisher outlining either the terms on which you are offering a licence to publish, or explaining that the work is submitted for the publisher's consideration only - if the publisher is interested, they should contact you to negotiate the terms.

A useful guide to the current default policies of publishers regarding copyright, use of pre- and post-prints, etc. is available at SHERPA.

Collection of royalties

Another issue you may want to consider as a copyright owner is becoming a member of a copyright collecting society such as the Copyright Agency Ltd, Screenrights or Viscopy. These societies represent the owners of various types of copyright works. They license or administer certain uses of copyright material, collecting and distributing fees for the use of copyright works.

The Australian Copyright Council

The Australian Copyright Council is a non-profit, member-based organisation whose objectives include assisting creators and other copyright owners to exercise their rights effectively.

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