Copyright for Staff
Guidelines for using electronic material
It is important, for both ethical and legal reasons, to respect and protect the intellectual property rights of others, and to recognise the legal rights that owners of copyright hold.
Publishing Information on the Internet
The nature of the Internet makes it incredibly easy to copy information and publish it on another site.
- If you are publishing information on the Internet, make sure your text, images, sound or video are original or you have permission to use them.
- Exercise caution at all times when using material created by other people. You must obtain permission to use or adapt any information or material.
- The University is the owner of copyright for any material prepared by employees in carrying out their duties. The standard statement to indicate the name of the copyright holder is as follows:
Copyright <name of copyright holder>
an example would be - Copyright Macquarie University
Note that while a copyright notice is not required in Australia, for maximum protection overseas it is always a good idea to use a statement of this kind.
- If you are concerned that your information will be copied and used by someone else you can limit the access to Macquarie University or your College, Division, Office Centre or Unit by using password protection.
Reproducing Information from the Internet
- If you wish to reproduce any electronic materials from another site, you MUST obtain formal permission and acknowledge the source of each reproduction of text, images, sound and video.
- If you wish to reproduce or link to material at another site, read any copyright statement that is attached to the site and make sure that you comply with it.
- If you wish to link to another site it is recommended that you obtain permission.
- Under various international treaties, most foreign copyright holders are protected in Australia and Australian copyright holders are protected in most overseas countries.
- Australian material is automatically protected; an original work of any sort is protected from the time it is written down or recorded in some way. So, even if no copyright statement appears, regard a work as copyright protected.
Downloading software from the Internet
- Shareware is normally available to a user for a fixed period after which time it should be purchased and registered.
- Freeware can be downloaded and used for free.
- Demonstration versions of software are normally free to use for a fixed period , at which time the software licence will expire until the user purchases a licence.