Copyright, non-educational activities, research and universities

As Australian universities diversify their activities, the issue of intellectual property, particularly copyright, becomes a significant factor, given that universities as educational institutions and academics as individuals are provided with a number of exceptions within the Copyright Act 1968 (Cth) (hereafter referred to as the Copyright Act) that allows them to copy and reproduce third party copyright material, but only as part of educational and research activities. The aim of this research is to explore how universities in Australia are managing copyright issues in relation to the use of third party copyright material for educational, non-educational and research activities. The research has identified that universities and academic staff in Australia are potentially at risk of breaching their obligations under the Copyright Act and licensing agreements when using third party copyright material as part of certain types of non-educational activities. When undertaking non-educational activities, Australian universities are likely to need to rely on licensing agreements or seek permissions from copyright holders rather than copyright legislation to use third party copyright material. This research has found that university staff may not be aware that there is a need to consider third party copyright material and other forms of third party intellectual property as part of non-educational activities. Only a limited number of the publicly accessible copyright policies or information guides of Australian universities examined, addressed non-educational activities. Also, the majority of the publicly accessible policies and procedures related to intellectual property and non-educational activities of Australian universities examined were silent on the need to consider the use of third party intellectual property when undertaking non-educational activities. The research also shows that the structure and responsibilities of the legal and research services within Australian universities differ and there are a number of areas within universities responsible for intellectual property including copyright such as legal services, industry engagement, library, international and research services. In the future, as the level of non-educational activities including commercial activities within Australian universities continue to increase, it will be essential that the copyright practices and copyright policies, procedures or information guides of universities adapt to address copyright issues in respect to licensing agreements, the educational statutory licensing schemes, other educational sections, the fair dealing exceptions and non-educational activities to ensure that third party copyright is not infringed on the basis that an activity has an element of commerciality.