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Copyright Guidelines

Status


Approved

To promote copyright compliance by staff and students.

Public
visibility
Approved on: 07 Aug 2020
Review cycle: 3 Years
Owned by

Library Committee

Approved by

Chief Operations Officer

Policy Contact: 
Librarian
Background: 

Copyright legislation exists to balance the competing interests of the originators of work and those who wish to copy this work. With the myriad forms of media and methods of publication this legislation has become increasingly complex. A further complication is that different provisions exist for copying done by individuals and educational institutions.

Purpose: 

To promote copyright compliance by staff and students.

Scope: 

These guidelines apply to all staff and students of MST.

Statement: 

This document focuses upon Melbourne School of Theology as a corporate entity, but considers individual responsibility within this framework. The information detailed is derived from the Australian Copyright Council (http://www.copyright.org.au/) and the Copyright Agency Limited (http://www.copyright.com.au/).

Photocopying

Staff / Lecturer Photocopying

Melbourne School of Theology operates under a system that allows specific educational institutions to make copies of copyright works for educational purposes. This system involves payment of a license fee to Copyright Agency Limited (CAL) on behalf of the creators of the different works copied. The license fee paid to CAL is calculated annually based upon the number of students enrolled.

CAL reserves the right to do spot audits to ensure that the college is abiding to the terms of the contract. These terms include restricting copying to the standard limits listed in the table below.

Although copyright does not require it, moral rights issues dictate that every photocopied work be acknowledged. For this reason each copyright master is to be stamped with the CAL stamp and the date, title, author, and publisher of the work is to be acknowledged. This copyright master is then to be used for all subsequent photocopies.

Student Photocopying

The responsibility for the amount of a work photocopied by a student ultimately rests with the individual student. However, Melbourne School of Theology has a duty of care to warn students that there are restrictions on the amount and type of material that can be copied. The copyright act gives protection from corporate responsibility for student breaches of copyright provided the 'copyright notice' as shown in these guidelines is prominently displayed around each photocopier. It is therefore, the policy of the College to prominently display this notice over all photocopiers. This notice is available in information sheet G40 from the Australian Copyright Council (http://www.copyright.org.au/).

Photocopying Limitation Guidelines

The following table provides broad guidelines for limitations imposed on copying:

Form of Work Standard Limits
Book 1 chapter or 10% of the number of pages (whichever is greater) *
Pamphlet (< 10 pages) Reasonable amount, but not all of it. *
Pamphlet (> 10 pages) 1 chapter or 10% of the number of pages (whichever is greater) *
Journal issue 1 article only unless subsequent articles are almost identical in subject
Newspaper/magazine 1 article only unless subsequent articles are almost identical in subject
Encyclopaedia Up to 15 pages
Play/script (< 10 pages) Reasonable amount, but not all of it
Play/script (> 10 pages) 10% of the number of pages
Music (< 10 pages) Reasonable amount, but not all of it
Music (> 10 pages) 10% of the number of pages
Image (accompanying text) All provided text being copied falls within limits given above
Image (on its own) Reasonable amount, but not all of it
Thesis/DSP (unpublished) Under copyright the whole work may be copied
Unpublished item All may be copied +

* For works that are out of print or will take more than six months to acquire it is possible to copy the whole work provided it is for educational purposes.
+ Despite this there is a moral obligation for contact to be made with the author of the work to detail the intention to copy all/significant part of their work.

Use of YouTube and Other Online Video Sharing Platforms

The following restrictions apply to the use of material uploaded to YouTube and to other online video sharing platforms such as Dailymotion, Veoh, and Vimeo, for example.

YouTube’s terms and conditions will determine how YouTube and its users can use the owner's material. Similarly, the terms and conditions of other video sharing platforms will determine how the platform and its users can use the owner's material:

  • Staff and students may need permission to use third party material like music and images in videos uploaded to YouTube or other video sharing platform.
  • There is no general exception for non-commercial use of copyright material in  videos, but some types of use may be covered by fair dealing.  

Please refer to information sheet G117 from the Australian Copyright Council for more information. (http://www.copyright.org.au/).

Scanning into Moodle

The Moodle website from a legislative point of view is best considered as an Intranet for Melbourne School of Theology. With the additional copyright provisions allowed for educational institutions it is important that any scanned material can only be accessed by current students, faculty, staff and lecturers.

In addition, the short print runs for published works means that they often quickly become out of print. When this happens there is a temptation to scan the whole work into Moodle. However, with short run reprints occurring with increasing frequency Eastern College would be breaching copyright if the scanned work was not immediately removed from Moodle. For this reason it is the College policy that wherever possible scanning be restricted to normal copyright limitations.

Bearing the above points in mind the process for scanning into Moodle is as follows:

  1. Check that the level of scanning desired is within standard copyright limitations.
  2. Make sure that the photocopier you are using supports optical character recognition (OCR). This is to enable the student to add annotations to the document in PDF format. 
  3. If you are scanning a chapter or excerpt from a book, include its title page and copyright information page. 
  4. A copyright notice (as follows) must be included at the front of any material copied. It is the lecturer’s responsibility to make sure that this notice is included with any material they upload into Moodle.  

Copyright Notice

"COMMONWEALTH OF AUSTRALIA
Copyright Regulations 1969

WARNING

This material has been reproduced and communicated to you by or on behalf of Melbourne School of Theology pursuant to part V8 of the Copyright Act 1968 (The Act). The material in this communication may be subject to copyright under the Act. Any further reproduction or communication of this material by you may be the subject of copyright protection under the Act.

Do not remove this notice."

Burning CD-ROMs

The same principles that apply to lecturer and student photocopying and scanning also apply to the burning of CD-ROMs.

Storing of Websites

There is a temptation by many organisations to cache Internet sites, but this usually involves a breach of copyright. It is acceptable to store a link to a site, but unless there is an explicit statement about sharing information (e.g. e-mail to a friend) any advance on this is fraught with danger.

Currently the College stores the web addresses for a multiplicity of sites through Moodle. This practice complies with the appropriate copyright and licensing legislation. It is therefore College policy to restrict the storing of Internet sites to this process.

Copying Via Computers / Video Recorders

It is possible for students to breach copyright related to audiovisual materials by copying from computers and video recorders. As a result MSThas a duty of care to display notices around such equipment warning students/staff/lecturers about copyright. The warning notice is available in information sheet G40 from the Australian Copyright Council (http://www.copyright.org.au/).

Visually Impaired Students

As a whole additional allowances exist for educational institutions that are copying for students who have a print or intellectual disability. However, any copying outside normal copyright provisions can only proceed after CAL has been given a written undertaking to pay for copies of text. Similarly, Screenrights is to be given a written undertaking to pay for copies of sound recordings, films, television and radio broadcasts. Further information is available in information sheet G60 from the Australian Copyright Council (http://www.copyright.org.au/).

The alternative of tape recording an oral reading of material does not have any copyright restrictions for either disabled or able bodied persons. For this reason it is College policy to use tape recording whenever possible. These tape recordings will then be catalogued and stored in the Resource Centre when their use is not required by the disabled student.