When You Need to Ask Permission

When You Need to Ask Permission

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: 
  1. Reproduce
  2. Distribute
  3. Publicly Perform; and 
  4. Adapt their material. 
For more information see the fact sheet “What Rights Do Visual Artists and Writers Have in Their Work?”

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:
  1. The material you want to use is subject to copyright;
  2. You want to use a “substantial part” of the material;
  3. The material is is still within its copyright protection period;
  4. There is no existing permission or licence that allows you to use the material in the way you want to; or
  5. There is no “copyright exception” that applies.

For more information, see the fact sheet “How to Stay Copyright Compliant.”

Own works

Generally, if you or your organisation owns copyright in a work you will not need to get permission to copy. However, care needs to be taken in making assumptions as to who owns certain rights in “in-house” material, because there may be restrictions on its use.

If you have collaborated with someone else to create your work, you will need to get permission from the other owner/s before you copy, publish, or do any of the other copyright restricted acts unless your use is covered by a statutory exception.

It is not an infringement of copyright to use public domain works. However, if you copy from a work that is still under copyright protection in another country and you intend to distribute your work in that country or post it on a publicly accessible website, you need to get permission.