Copyright for Teaching Purposes
Using Legal Material
Copying materials under Commonwealth Licence
The Commonwealth Government allows the copying of certain legal materials for educational purposes. This licence is completely separate from the University's licence with CAL (the Part VB Licence). Subject to the conditions below, the licence allows multiple copying of specified amounts from electronic and hard copy sources, and includes delivery by electronic methods.
Conditions relating to the copying are:
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The copying must be for teaching or research purposes or, in the case of people with a print or intellectual disability for research or study.
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If sold to students, the charge must not exceed the cost of making and supplying the material.
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A record needs to be kept of all copies made under this licence.
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If you retype or scan an item, the reproduction must be accurate and in context, and the source must be identified accurately.
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Material copied under this licence must be accurately identified, must acknowledge the Commonwealth as copyright owner and include a disclaimer regarding the accuracy of the material copied.
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Material reproduced under the Commonwealth notice must include the following notation:
These materials are copied
[for the teaching/research purposes] or
[to assist a student with a disability]
for the University of New England under Commonwealth licence.
Under this licence, you are not permitted to copy privately owned copyright material associated with a judgement or embodied in other material, or to copy a published edition of a judgment or other material in which the copyright is held other than by the Crown (e.g. a law report published by Butterworths).
The amounts that may be copied are:
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any amount from Hansard
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any amount of a judgement of Commonwealth or its Territories (apart from the Northern Territory) courts or tribunals
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30% of the number of pages of whole Commonwealth and its Territories (apart from the Northern Territory) Bills, Explanatory Memoranda, Acts, Statutory Rules, and Ordinances and Regulations. If official copies are not commercially available within reasonable time (they usually are) you may copy more, including the whole item
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10% of the number of pages of whole reports of Commonwealth law reform bodies and of Commonwealth Parliamentary Papers relevant to an understanding of a Commonwealth or Territory law. If official copies are not commercially available within reasonable time you may copy more than 10%, including the whole item.
Copying New South Wales legislation
You may copy for any purpose any NSW legislation provided that you reproduce it accurately, in proper context and to an 'appropriate' standard, and that you identify its source accurately.
Note that only legislation is covered by this licence and it allows reproduction and delivery by hardcopy or electronic means.
Copying material from the High Court of Australia
The High Court of Australia allows digital or hard copy reproduction and distribution of their copyright material for educational purposes.
The conditions relating to this use are:
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they must be reproduced without textual alteration
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they must be reproduced in context (in the case of extracts of documents)
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acknowledgement must be as follows: 'Copyright, High Court of Australia' (in the case of written material produced by the Court or its officers) or 'Courtesy High Court of Australia' (in the case of photographic or artistic material).
All High Court decisions are published on the Court's website at http://www.hcourt.gov.au/, usually within an hour of their handing down in court. When accessing decisions from the site, you can download them in Rich Text Format, using the button at the top of each decision page, and from there convert them into any suitable digital format for distribution or reproduction.
You may convert any other High Court material to digital form for educational purposes.
It is important to ensure that when copying High Court judgements you use the High Court website (rather than published law reports) if this licence is to be relied upon. If you copy from published law reports, this would have to be reported under the Educational Licence VB sampling scheme, as there is copyright in the headnotes, published edition etc.
Using single copies of Statutory Instruments
Section 182A of the Copyright Act permits one reprographic reproduction (photocopy) to be made of the whole or part of a 'prescribed work'. The copy may be made by or on behalf of a person for a 'particular purpose'. Although 'particular purpose' is not defined, 'prescribed work' is, and under this Section means:
a) an Act or State Act, an enactment of the legislature of a Territory or an instrument (including an Ordinance or a rule, regulation or by-law) made under an Act, a State Act or such an enactment
b) a judgement, order or award of a Federal court or of a court of a State or Territory
c) a judgement, order or award of a Tribunal (not being a court) established by or under an Act or other enactment of the Commonwealth, a State or a Territory
d) reasons for a decision of a court referred to in paragraph (b), or of a Tribunal referred to in paragraph (c), given by the court or by the Tribunal, or
e) reasons given by a Justice, Judge or other member of a court referred to in paragraph (b), or of a member of a Tribunal referred to in paragraph (c), for a decision given by him or her either as the sole member, or as one of the members, of the court or Tribunal.
Any cost for this service must must not exceed the cost of making and supplying the copy.
In order to identify reliance on this section of the Act, material copied for or on behalf of others, should be identified with the following note 'Copied under Section 182A of the Copyright Act'.
Other ways in which legal materials may be used
Certain quantities of law materials from print may be reproduced and used under the terms of the Part VB Licence.
Where legal materials are freely available on the web, such as via Austlii, you are advised to provide students with the URL for them to access these resources individually.