Is your council copyright compliant? Don’t risk infringement; contact the Copyright Agency for advice. Image: Horla Varlan
Australia’s author and artist-rights organisation, the Copyright Agency, has embarked on a campaign to encourage councils to take out licences to prevent common copyright infringement.
While a number of leading councils, such as Botany Bay and Willoughby in New South Wales, Bundaberg in Queensland, Hobart City in Tasmania, Monash City in Victoria and Greater Geraldton in Western Australia have been identified as copyright ‘champions’, a national survey of councils uncovered at least 125 were infringing copyright to the value of more than $600,000.
A large proportion of this copying involves reproducing the output of journalists, for example, copying news stories to add to environmental impact statements or sponsorship applications, for staff training and a range of other activities.
But it also includes domestic and international journal articles, magazines, website content, the copying of books, research papers, reviews, standards, charts, tables and graphs.
In one of the worst case scenarios, a large council in Sydney has published more than 440 articles without permission on its website, which, if licensed individually, would have cost approximately a quarter of a million dollars.
This ‘public’ copyright infringement is indicative of much greater internal sharing of material subject to copyright.
Chief Executive of the Copyright Agency, Adam Suckling said the simple solution for councils was to take out an annual cost-effective copyright licence.
“This is about doing the right thing,” Mr Suckling said.
“Not only does a licence facilitate transparency and the circulation of ideas, which is fundamental to a healthy democracy, it is a gold standard for good governance and will reduce the risk of legal action.”
He said this is also about councils making a positive contribution toward sustaining grassroots journalism in their communities right around Australia.
Licence fees paid to the not-for-profit Copyright Agency are distributed to its more than 41,000 content creator-members including journalists, artists, authors, publishers, cartoonists, educators and surveyors.
Since the campaign began, councils from five states have signed up for licences and the agency is in discussions with several local government associations to set up an across-the-board licence.
“It’s a very positive outcome and demonstrates the willingness of councils to respect the intellectual property of writers and publishers.”
The cost of a licence depends on the number of staff and coverage options chosen but range between approximately $1,000 for a small council with only 15 staff to approximately $11,000 for a council with 500 staff.
“Some councils are under the misapprehension that paying for media clippings covers their reuse in other ways, but that isn’t correct. To ensure complete coverage a copyright licence should be purchased,” Mr Suckling said.
State and federal governments are already covered under statutory copyright licences for which they pay licensing fees to the Copyright Agency.
Sue Nelson is the Communications and Media Manager at Copyright Agency.
