Copyright guidance for students and researchers

Australian copyright law includes a Fair Dealing provision that allows students and researchers to copy and use limited amounts of other people’s material (third party material protected by copyright) in their study or research, without the permission of the copyright owner.

 You may include the copied material in work you submit to your lecturer or examiner, (including in your thesis) provided that you:

• acknowledge it
• do not share the copied material with others
• do not use the copied material later if you intend to publish your work.

 Most of the teaching materials and resources that UOW provides you are protected by copyright. These are offered for your own educational purposes, and you are not allowed to reuse or share them without permission of the copyright owner. Improper or illegal use of teaching materials may lead to prosecution for copyright infringement. For example, you must not upload course materials to document sharing websites.

How much can you copy?

These same limitations apply when requesting copies via Document Delivery.

When can you copy more than this?

• If you have permission from the copyright owner.
• If the work is out of copyright or part of the public domain.
• In some cases, where you believe you are entitled under the five fair dealing factors specified in the Fair Dealing provisions.
• Under the Disability Access Exception if you have a disability.

Five fairness factors to consider

The Australian Copyright Act provides five fair dealing factors to consider when relying on the Fair Dealing exception for research or study.

If you want to copy artistic or audio-visual material, or more than a reasonable portion of text, you should first consider these factors to determine if your copying will be fair.

Reference and acknowledge the copied work

When you copy, reproduce or use other people’s material in your work, you need to correctly acknowledge the author and provide a reference to their material. The Copyright Act doesn’t specify what form the acknowledgement should take; this should be based on your specific discipline. See the UOW referencing and citing guide.

Disability Access Exceptions

The Copyright Act provides exceptions that allow for copying to be carried out to assist students with a disability.

Universities can search the Copyright Agency's Master Copy Catalogue to find works in alternative formats. If the material isn’t commercially available in the format you require, and with the appropriate features, you or the university can make accessible format copies. The Student Accessibility and Inclusion team can help with this, and other services.

If the material is available commercially, you can rely on this exception to copy the work: ‘Fair dealing for purpose of access by persons with a disability’.

Seeking permission to use copyright material

If you want to copy more than you are permitted, you will need to seek permission from the copyright owner.

Publishing your work

If you want to publish or promote your student work outside of UOW, you will need to reconsider any copyright material it contains. In most cases, you will need to seek permission from the copyright owner to include their material in any work you wish to publish.

UOW’s ownership of your work

In most cases, UOW students retain ownership of their student work. However, some exceptions and conditions apply. For example, in certain cases UOW will keep a copy of your work. For more information, read UOW’s Intellectual Property Policy.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Copyright legislation in Australia

The rapid development of AI-driven communication and creation tools is outpacing Australian copyright legislation. While existing laws offer some guidance, the absence of explicit AI references introduces ambiguities relating to ownership, authorship, and liability.

Is my AI-generated work protected by copyright?

In Australia, copyright protection requires that the author a) has contributed “independent intellectual effort” and b) is human. “Independent intellectual effort” is exercising personal judgement and discretion in activities like research, analysis, evaluation, selection, arrangement and expression. Therefore, works created solely by AI are not eligible for copyright protection. 

Can my work infringe on someone’s copyright if I use AI?

UOW users should adhere to the UOW IT Acceptable Use Policy, which states: Unauthorised copying or communication of copyright protected material violates the law and is contrary to the University’s standards of conduct and business practices. A yet-to-be-resolved issue relates to the compliance of the original materials used to train AI. Australian copyright law does not specifically address data mining or the use of works for machine learning. Other jurisdictions, such as the US, do have Fair Use exceptions that might allow for use of materials for model creation. However, if AI training used illegally copied materials, and your output can be linked to these, you risk receiving a takedown or infringement notice from the original copyright owner. Users should review the Terms and Conditions of any AI tool used. 

Are there any copyright exceptions to using AI?

Even if your purposes are for research or study, there is no exception in Australian Copyright legislation that would allow you to upload material to an Artificial Intelligence tool that uses your uploaded data to build or refine its model, and which may be accessed by people other than yourself. This would include material from library databases such as journal article PDFs, or course materials, images, audio or video that you do not own the copyright to.  

Do students give up their copyright if they add their content to an AI tool?

No, students do not automatically give up their copyright by adding their content to an AI tool. However, they should consider the following points:

• Copyright ownership - The original creator of the content retains the copyright to their work. This includes text, images, videos, and other original creations.
• Terms of service - It's important to review the terms of service of the AI tool being used. Some platforms may have terms that grant them certain rights to use, modify, or distribute the content, but this doesn't mean the student loses their copyright. Instead, it often means they are granting a license to the platform.
• Licence agreements - When using an AI tool, students might be required to agree to a licence that allows the tool to process and possibly use their content for various purposes, such as improving the service or creating aggregate data. This licence is usually non-exclusive and doesn't transfer ownership.
• AI-generated content - If the AI tool generates new content based on the student's input, the copyright status of the AI-generated content can be more complex. Generally, the original input remains the student's copyright, but the ownership of the generated content is less certain.