Copyright
Copyright protects the form or way an idea or information is expressed,
not the idea or information itself. (The idea may be covered by
other Intellectual Property Law, however, such as Trademarks, Designs
or
Patents). Copyright Law is designed to provide a balance between
rewarding creators for their works, thus encouraging further creativity,
and ensuring reasonable access by users to those works.
In Australia, copyright is covered by the Australian
Copyright Act and in the US the equivalent US
Copyright Act with amendments
in each
country. The Oceania University of Medicine Library and staff are
located in Australia and so come under the jurisdiction of Australian
legislation. With the recent signing of the Free Trade Agreement
between Australia and the United States, differences in the implementation
and enforcement
of copyright will
be minimised.
In both countries there is no requirement to place the copyright
symbol or any copyright notice on a work, so if you see a work without
the
symbol it does not mean there is no copyright attached to that work.
The Copyright Acts include sections setting out the exclusive rights
of copyright owners, as well as sections which specify the rights
of users - the Fair
Dealing (Aus) or Fair
Use (USA) sections.
Copyright Owners
In Australia the exclusive rights of copyright owners relating to
literary, dramatic & musical works are:
- To reproduce the work in a material form.
- To publish the work.
- To perform the work in public.
- To broadcast the work.
- To cause the work to be transmitted to subscribers
to a diffusion service.
- To make an adaptation of the work.
Anyone else performing any of these
acts without the specific permission of the copyright owner, infringes
that owner’s copyright. Depending
on the circumstances, such an action might be seen as plagiarism, academic
misconduct, infringement of moral rights, or theft.
Fair dealing
There is some limited free use of copyright works under the Acts;
in Australia this is called Fair Dealing in the United States it
is called
Fair Use.
Fair dealing applies only to the following activities by individuals:
- Research
and Study
- Criticism and Review
- News Reporting
- Reproduction for Purposes of Judicial Proceedings or
the Provision of Professional Legal Advice.
The Act says that you may copy a reasonable portion of a work for
any of the above purposes. This is interpreted as:
1. From a book - up to 10% or one chapter of the book, whichever
is the greater.
2. From a journal or periodical - up to one complete article from
any one issue of the journal or periodical.
(If there are two or more articles on the same topic in the journal,
then these may be copied, but the same topic restriction should be
interpreted narrowly eg 2 articles of a medical nature are not necessarily
on the same topic)
3. From an anthology - works contained in the anthology that are less
than 15 pages in length.
It is important to note that the points above
are the only purposes for which a fair dealing can be made. For
example, copying an article
on flowering plants to send to a friend who liked gardening would
not be a fair dealing.
Note that it is not within the spirit of the agreement, nor would
it be legal, to use this provision to systematically copy a complete
work
by copying Chapter 1 of a book in January and then Chapter 2 in
February, and so on.
Also note that if you wish to include copyright material in any
work which you plan to publish, prior permission must be obtained
from
the copyright owner.
A range of Information Guides to Copyright Law are available
from the Australian
Copyright Council and from the US
Copyright Office.
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