Copyright and your research
Including material in your thesis and publications
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Acknowledgement
of Country
The University of Queensland (UQ)
acknowledges the Traditional Owners and their
custodianship of the lands on which we meet.
We pay our respects to their Ancestors and their
descendants, who continue cultural and spiritual
connections to Country.
We recognise their valuable contributions to
Australian and global society.
Diversity and
inclusion
The University of Queensland
Library expresses our firm and
proactive commitment to
supporting efforts for greater
diversity and inclusion within our
University.
We celebrate and are enriched
by the differences in all that we
do and together with you, are
building a Library that is
underpinned by respect,
inclusion and equality.
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Today’s Session
• Copyright
• What it is, what it covers and what it allows/restricts
• Fair Dealing Principles
• Creative Commons
• What it is, how it works, what it allows
• Using Copyright and Creative Commons works
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Intellectual Property - Copyright, Patents & Trademarks
• Intellectual property is the umbrella term for copyright, patent and trademark
law.
– Copyright is a form of IP, and the terms are sometimes used
interchangeably.
• Trademarks are designed to protect brand names or logos used on goods
and services.
– They are a way to help protect the reputation of producers, and allow the
public a simple way to differentiate between similar products and
services.
• Patents give inventors exclusive rights to their inventions for a limited term.
– Patents usually give inventors the right to licence their invention to third
parties so that they can be used, made, or sold.
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What is Copyright?
• Copyright is the legal protection for the expression of ideas.
• Copyright is instantaneous
– Copyright begins as you are typing your work, or when you take a photo.
– There is no system for registering copyright in Australia.
– You don’t even need to have © on your work for copyright to apply!
• (But it can help…)
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The Purpose of Copyright – Exclusive Rights
• Copyright is designed to incentivise people to create new works by offering
them protection from competition for a limited time.
• In Australia, copyright protection is granted through exclusive rights:
– Legal rights;
– Moral rights.
• These exclusive rights allow the creators to control some uses of their works
by others.
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Legal Rights
• Allow the author exclusive legal control of their works.
• These rights are transferrable.
• Allows the rightsholder to receive a financial reward from the use of their works by
others.
• The rightsholder has the exclusive right to:
– Make copies of their works;
– Perform and communicate their works to the public; and
– Make adaptations, including translation and arrangements of their works.
• Anyone who wants to do any of these things with a copyright work must ask for
permission from the rightsholder, and the rightsholder can charge a fee for this use.
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Moral Rights
• Moral Rights are the rights individual authors have in their works.
• Moral rights are separate from the legal rights of the copyright owner.
– The author of the work, who may or may not be the copyright holder,
retains moral rights in their work.
– Moral rights are not transferrable and always remain with the work.
• Authors have three moral rights:
– To be attributed (or credited) for their work;
– Not to have their work falsely attributed;
– Not to have their work treated in a derogatory way.
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Duration of Copyright
• In general, copyright lasts for the life of the author, plus 70 years.
• Any works where the author died in 1952 or earlier could now be in the
Public Domain
• There are some exceptions to this however:
– Works created by corporations last for 70 years from publication;
– Works considered Crown copyright last for 50 years.
• Crown copyright are works created by or under the direction or control of
Federal or State govs.
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Duration of Copyright – Public Domain
• The Public Domain is a legal concept that describes where copyright works
go when the copyright term expires.
• Works in the Public Domain can be freely used without permission as
copyright no longer applies to them
• The Public Domain is not to be confused with a work being in the public
sphere – popular works are still copyrighted!
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What does copyright protect?
• Copyright protects:
– Textual Material
– Computer software
– Artistic works
– Dramatic works
– Musical works
– Films
– Sound recordings
– TV and Radio broadcasts
– Published editions
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What does copyright protect?
• Works will often have multiple copyrights in them.
• An example of this is a movie, which will often have copyright in:
– The script
– The set design
– The costume design
– Sound recording
– Cinematography
– Any music composed for the film
– Sound effects produced for the film
• Permission would also have to be sought for any music used in the film,
which has its own set of copyrights!
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What can’t be copyrighted?
• There are some things that might not meet the requirements to receive copyright
protection.
• These include:
– Data;
– Screenshots;
– Photographs of existing works;
– Single words (even if they are invented – these might be able to be
trademarked);
– Names;
– Titles;
– Slogans;
– Headlines;
– Outputs from generative AI.
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What can’t be copyrighted – Generative AI
• The Copyright Act 1968 (Cth) outlines the requirements for a work to receive
copyright protection:
1. “Subject to this Act, copyright subsists in an original … work (where) the author:
a) was a qualified person at the time when the work was made; or
b) If the making of the work over a period – was a qualified person for a
substantial part of that period.
4. In this section, qualified person means an Australian citizen or a person
resident in Australia.
What can’t be copyrighted – 16
Generative AI
• The emphasis on personhood in the Act means that
the outputs of generative AI are at present not
eligible to receive copyright protection
– They have been created by a non-human author.
• The same goes for this image of Naruto the Celebes
crested macaque.
– Naruto took this selfie, and as the shutter was
depressed by a non-human, the image is not
eligible for copyright protection.
What can’t be copyrighted –
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Generative AI
• A recent US Copyright Office decision, and
subsequent guidance, has clarified the current
position of copyright and AI generated works.
– Zarya of the Dawn is a graphic novel by Kris
Kashtanova.
– Kashtanova used the generative AI tool
MidJourney to create the images for the work.
– Kashtanova applied to the USCO to register ©
in Zarya.
– USCO initially granted © to the entire work, but
subsequently revised its decision to only © the
human generated storyline, not the images.
– USCO issued guidance in March 2023 clarifying
this position
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Other AI Considerations
• Do not upload PDFs of journal articles/eBooks accessed through the Library’s
subscriptions.
– This violates the terms of our agreements with the publishers.
• Be careful when uploading datasets or other sensitive information for analysis by
generative AI.
– The terms of use of these services state that anything uploaded will form the
corpus by which the AI is trained and any sensitive data could be reused in a
different AI output. This could violate any ethics permissions you have.
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Who holds the copyright in your thesis?
A. Me
B. My Supervisor
C. UQ
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Who owns the copyright in your work?
• Under UQ’s Intellectual Property Policy 4.30.01a:
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Fair Dealing
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Fair Dealing & Fair Use
• Fair Dealing is a set of principles in the Australian Copyright Act (1968)
– Fair Use is in the American Copyright Act
• Fair Dealing is prescribed in the Act with a list of (possible) acceptable uses.
– Fair Use is not a right, it is open to interpretation and a defensible position
• Fair Dealing allows for some exemptions to copyright law in certain
circumstances.
• While it might be more restrictive than Fair Use in some ways, it is more
obvious what is covered in the Fair Dealing exemptions.
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Fair Dealing
• The Copyright Act (1968) outlines the Fair Dealing exceptions:
– Research or Study
– Criticism or Review
– Parody or Satire
– Reporting the news
– Disability Access
– Judicial proceedings or professional advice
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Fair Dealing – Research or Study
• You are permitted to copy a “reasonable” portion of a work for the purpose of
research or study.
• “Reasonable” is defined to be 10% of the number of pages or one chapter of
the work (if in chapters).
• But what about work that is not written?
– A whole sound recording, film/moving image or broadcast can be used
under fair dealing for the purpose of research or study.
• You cannot rely on this fair dealing provision when publishing work!
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Fair Dealing – Criticism & Review
• The Act says:
• “A fair dealing with a literary, dramatic, musical or artistic work, or with an
adaptation of a literary, dramatic or musical work, does not constitute an
infringement of the copyright in the work if it is for the purpose of criticism or
review, whether of that work or of another work, and a sufficient
acknowledgement of the work is made”.
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Fair Dealing – Criticism & Review
• Principles in relation to Fair Dealing for Criticism & Review:
– Criticism and review are words of wide and indefinite scope which
should be interpreted liberally;
– Criticism and review involve the passing of judgement and may be
strongly expressed;
– Criticism and review must be genuine and not a pretence for some other
form of purpose (but if genuine need not necessarily be balanced);
– An oblique or hidden motive may disqualify reliance upon criticism and
review;
– Criticism and review extends to thoughts underlying the expression of
the copyright works or subject matter.
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Creative Commons
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What is Creative Commons?
• Creative Commons (CC) licences are a layer that sits on top of Copyright.
• They allow a simple, standardised way for creators to share their work with
others on flexible terms without infringing copyright.
• These licences allow creators to let people know how they would like their
work to be used:
– “Offering your work under a CC licence does not mean giving up your
copyright. It means permitting users to make use of your material in
various ways, but only on certain conditions” (creativecommons.org.au
2020).
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Creative Commons Licences
• There are six Creative Commons licences, which are made up of four licence
elements each with their own icon:
– Attribution
– NonCommercial
– NoDerivatives
– ShareAlike
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The Four Licence Elements - Attribution
• The Attribution element is the base element that
is in all of the six Creative Commons licences.
• In essence, this element recognises the author’s
moral rights under the Copyright Act.
• This is the part of the licence that requires correct
attribution when the work is used and reused.
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The Four Licence Elements - NonCommercial
• The NonCommercial element prohibits the use of the
work for a commercial purpose.
• This is defined in the legal code as:
– “not primarily intended for or directed towards
commercial advantage or monetary
compensation”.
• This definition makes it about the use of the work, rather
than the user.
– Even if you are a commercial, for profit, company
you might be able to use NonCommerical licenced
work without violating the licence terms.
– For more information on this, please visit the CC
NonCommerical Interpretation page.
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The Four Licence Elements – NoDerivatives
• The NoDerivatives element prohibits users from
sharing adaptations of a work that has been
licenced with this element.
• For example, you may use an image that has this
licence element, Photoshop the image to change
the colours or add/remove objects, all provided
that you do not share the resulting adaptation with
anyone – your use must remain private.
• This also means that works licenced with this
element can be used in text and data mining
without infringing on the terms of the licence.
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The Four Licence Elements - ShareAlike
• When the ShareAlike element is applied to a CC
licence, it means that any new works created with the
licenced work must also have the same, or a
compatible, licence applied to it.
• If you aren’t sure if the licence you want to use is
compatible, please check this list.
• This licence element is about increasing the number of
works in the commons and achieves this by requiring
you to share your adaptation through the same licence
terms.
• Because this licence element is about making
adaptations, it is not compatible with the NoDerivatives
element.
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The Six Creative Commons Licences
• The six Creative Commons licences fall on a spectrum
from most to least open (as in the image on the right).
• These six licences are:
– Attribution
– Attribution – ShareAlike
– Attribution – NonCommercial
– Attribution – NonCommerical – ShareAlike
– Attribution – NoDerivatives
– Attribution – NonCommercial – NoDerivatives
Creative Commons license spectrum by
Shaddim licenced under CC BY 4.0
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Using Copyright & CC material
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Using Copyright material
• If you want to use Copyright material, you are probably going to need
permission form the rights owner to do this – permission should be in writing!
• You can find out information on how to get permission, including some
sample permission requests, on the Library’s Copyright Information page
here.
• One thing to keep in mind when requesting permission is that it’s best to
provide the rights owner with as much information as possible about how you
plan to use the material.
• You will not need to request permission if your use falls under one of the Fair
Dealing exemptions
– You cannot rely on Research & Study when publishing!
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Permissions – Journal Articles/eBooks
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Permissions – Journal Articles/eBooks
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Permissions – Journal Articles/eBooks
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Permissions
• For works that don’t have an automated system, or for uses that don’t fit into
the automated system, permission will have to be sought the old fashioned
way – in writing to the rights holder!
• Depending on the situation, if you cannot find the rights holder of the work, it
might be an orphan:
– If you beleve the work you want to use is an orphan, please email
[email protected] to discuss further before your use.
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Permissions
• It is important to think about permissions for any of your thesis work that is
published as journal articles during your candidature.
• While it’s an accepted practice that work you publish during your candidature
will end up in your thesis, it is a good idea to be up front with the journal
editor/publisher and let them know that this will happen.
– It is also good to have this in writing!
• Your thesis will go up on eSpace as open access, this counts as a
publication.
– Your thesis can be embargoed for a limited period of time, and permission
from the Grad School will need to be sought for an extension of this.
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Using CC material
• As long as you abide by the terms of the Creative Commons licence, you do
not need to seek permission from the rights owner to use CC licenced
materials.
• This is particularly useful for images.
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Using CC material
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"Long-Haired Dachshund" by big_fordy is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0
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Who do we need to
ask permission to
include this image
in your thesis?
A. The Photographer
B. The home owner
C. No one
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We’ve used the
image, do we need an
SA element too?
A. The image is unchanged and included
alongside a few other photos, so I don’t
need to licence my work with a CC BY-
NC-SA licence
B. The image has been edited to remove
the tree, and appears alongside other
images, so I don’t need to licence my
work with a CC BY-NC-SA licence
C. The image has been edited, so I need a
CC BY-NC-SA licence
D. Both A and C are correct
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Questions?
If you think of some later, no problem!
Email: [email protected]
Thank you
James Lewandowski-Cox
UQ Copyright Officer
[email protected]
07 336 53483
