The Law Handbook 2024

762 Section 7: Consumers, contracts, the internet and copyright person who grants the licence) cannot allow anyone else, including itself, to use the rights granted by the licence. A written exclusive licence enables the licensee to sue for copyright infringement (ss 10, 119). A non-exclusive licence allows the licensor to grant as many other licences as it wishes. Copyright licensing bodies There are several bodies that represent copyright owners in relation to licensing; these are useful contacts if you wish to reproduce copyright material: • APRA AMCOS (broadcasting or public performance of musical works, and recording or copying published music); • PPCA (broadcasting or public performance of sound recordings and music video clips); • OneMusic Australia (offers combined public performance licences for APRA, AMCOS and PPCA material); • Screenrights (rights in relation to film and television programs); and • Copyright Agency (incorporating Viscopy) (reproduction of published literary, artistic works). Contact details for these organisations are at the end of this chapter. Acts permitted by the Copyright Act Australia’s copyright law (unlike that of the United States) does not include a general defence to copyright infringement that the defendant’s use of the work was fair or for a purpose that should not be illegal. Instead, the Copyright Act sets out a number of specific circumstances in which reproducing a substantial part of a work does not infringe copyright. These circumstances are complex, and are not amended often enough to keep up with technological change. In 2013, the Australian Law Reform Commission recommended these specific provisions be replaced with a general exception to copyright infringement that the use of a copyright work was ‘fair use’ in view of the purpose and character of the use, the nature of the copyright material, the extent of reproduction, and the effect of the use on the value of the copyright material. The Productivity Commission made a similar recommendation in its 2016 final report on intellectual property. Legislation to give effect to these recommendations has not been introduced. There are many specific exceptions in force. Some require that the dealing with the copyright material must be ‘fair’ – see factors considered in section 40(2); see also ‘Fair dealing for research or study’, below. Exceptions include the following. Fair dealing for research or study (ss 40, 103C) There are two ways of deciding whether copying is fair dealing for the purpose of research or study. The first way depends on the exact amount copied. The following all constitute fair dealing, provided only one copy is made: • copying one or more articles in a periodical for the purpose of a single piece of research or a single course of study; • copying no more than one chapter or 10 per cent of the total number of pages of a published edition of a work (other than a periodical article or a computer program), provided the published edition is at least 10 pages long; and • copying no more than one chapter or 10 per cent of the total number of words of a published literary or dramatic work in electronic form (other than a periodical article, a computer program or database). The second way of establishing fair dealing is set out in sections 40(2) and 103C(2). It is not restricted to copying any particular amount of the work or audiovisual item (sound recording, film, sound or television broadcast (s 100A)), although the amount copied is relevant. Other relevant factors are the nature of the work or audiovisual item, the reason for copying, whether the work or item could be bought in a reasonable time at an ordinary commercial price, and the effect of the copying on the work’s or item’s value. For example, it may be necessary to reproduce the whole of a short letter in a historical thesis to analyse the writer’s attitude to the matters discussed in the letter. Fair dealing for criticism or review (ss 41, 103A) No quantities are specified in the Copyright Act to constitute fair dealing of copyright material for criticism or review. In some cases, it may be necessary to reproduce the whole work (e.g. a short poem) to criticise it. It is necessary to sufficiently acknowledge the copied material, which, for works, means identifying the author and the title (s 10(1)).