As a creative you will often look to the work of other writers, artists, filmmakers or musicians for inspiration, to integrate into your own works, or as material that you want to perform. You might want to include someone’s song into your short film, someone’s poem into your novel, or perform a play written by somebody else. Before you do this you must consider whether you require permission of the copyright owner.
A copyright owner has the exclusive rights to:
- Reproduce
- Distribute
- Publicly Perform; and
- Adapt their material.
From a content user’s point of view, the exclusive copyright rights in relation to a work are often referred to as “restricted acts”. If you want to copy or do any of the “restricted acts” in relation to someone else’s copyrighted work, you’ll need to seek permission from the copyright owner when:
- The material you want to use is subject to copyright.
- You want to use a “substantial part” of the material.
- The material is is still within its copyright protection period
- There is no existing permission or licence that allows you to use the material in the way you want to
- There is no “copyright exception” that applies
You have a responsibility to respect the rules (copyright laws!) that protect and encourage the production of creative material by others. After all, you’ll be looking for the same protections over the works you create.
It’s important to note that merely acknowledging the creator or the source of a work is no substitute for obtaining permission from the copyright owner and no defence to a claim of copyright infringement.
Check out the fact sheet “
How to Stay Copyright Compliant” for a handy guide on how to use other people’s material without infringing copyright, and familiarise yourself with the other fact sheets available through
Legal Service.
Did you know you can store contracts and accompanying documents in
Catalogue to keep track of the rights you retain and the ones you've given away?