Copyright for administrative purposes

University staff may need to use copyright material created by others, referred to as third party copyright material for administrative purposes. Examples include communication pieces that appear in newsletters, blog sites, marketing collateral, social media posts, and on the university website.  It is important to inform our community and audience about events, initiatives and stories, but you must consider copyright when creating your communication piece.

Under the UNE Copyright Policy, staff have a responsibility to become aware of their rights and obligations regarding copyright and moral rights. Staff must adhere to the relevant provisions of the Copyright Act 1968 (Cth) and licence terms when using third party copyright material.

What does copyright protect?

Copyright applies to certain types of material outlined in the Copyright Act which grants legal protection to original works across eight categories.

How are you using third party copyright material?

Do you want to use copyright material created by someone else? This could include (but is not limited to)

  • making a copy of a photo taken by someone else or an article or excerpt of an article from a newspaper
  • uploading an image created by someone else to the university website, newsletter or blog post.

Copyright may be owned by an individual, government body, company or institution. Owners of copyright material have exclusive legal rights to use their material in certain ways. While the exclusive rights vary according to the type of work, briefly, exclusive rights can include the right to make a copy, reproduce, communicate (make publicly available online or via email) or publish the work.

If you want to use third party copyright material for your communication piece or other administrative purposes in any of the exclusive ways reserved for copyright owners, then there are several considerations you must address before proceeding with the intended use. Generally, unless the third-party copyright material is openly licensed (e.g. under a Creative Commons licence), or in the public domain, you will need permission or a licence to use it.

Frequently asked questions

If I credit or acknowledge the source, can I use the third party copyright material

No. Giving credit, acknowledging or providing an attribution for the creator and/or owner of copyright material is best practice, conforms with academic integrity and complies with your moral rights obligations.

However, the act of crediting or acknowledging a source is a separate matter to obtaining the rights to use the copyright material. You must still obtain permission or a licence to use copyright material created by someone else for your communication piece or administrative purposes (where the material is not openly licensed or public domain, see above).

If material is freely available from the internet, can I use it

Not necessarily. Copyright protection applies to material which is publicly available on a website. Always check the terms and conditions on websites. Some website terms and conditions may grant you permission to use material on their site for specific uses, or it may indicate that permission must be obtained before using the material in specific ways. Alternatively, you may be required to obtain a licence to use the material for your intended use.

There may be exceptions to this, for example, material licensed under a Creative Commons licence, or a bespoke open licence (e.g. Unsplash), or material in which copyright protection has expired. However, caution must still be exercised with this material. There may be instances where copyright material has had a Creative Commons licence applied to it by someone who does not have the rights to do so, or material may be labelled 'public domain' even though it may still be protected by copyright. You should check any reference or attribution on the material which indicates whether the material is all rights reserved or openly licensed, whether it is a copy or the original work, who the creator or copyright owner is, and even when it was created.

Further caution should be had with internet material, as a website could contain copyright material owned by the person, organisation or company as well as incorporate third party copyright material for which they have their own licence. In the case of third party copyright material the person, company or organisation hosting the website will likely not have the rights to grant a licence to you or others for third party copyright material on their website, and you would need to seek your own permission or licence.

If I have a personal subscription for a service or platform, can I use it for work purposes

Subscription terms vary across different services and platforms (e.g. local newspapers, design services like Canva, animation and AV software) and you should not assume that your personal subscription permits use of the service or platform for work purposes.

You should read and understand the terms of use or licence before using the service or platform. Some things to look for include, but are not limited to, whether:

  • the licence is for personal use only
  • a personal licence can be used for other purposes e.g. work
  • the licence is perpetual or for a set duration or project
  • there are requirements for attribution or crediting the creator/copyright owner
  • the content can be sub-licensed
  • there are different permitted uses for royalty free content compared to paid content
  • the content created from the service or platform can be distributed or shared publicly e.g. in a YouTube video, on the university website.

Always keep a record of subscriptions for services and platforms, and individual licences for third party copyright material e.g. in Content Manager (TRIM), even if they are free of cost.