Copyright laws

The Copyright Act 1968/Copyright Amendment (Digital Agenda) Act 2000 has been legislated by the Federal Government. This means that it covers all of Australia provided that:

• the work is original
• the work has a connecting factor with Australian law, that is, it was first published in Australia or in a country to which our Copyright Act extends, or the author is a citizen or resident of Australia.

Recent changes to the Copyright Act

Over the years technology has developed and changed at an incredible rate. These changes left the original Copyright Act out of date. In 2000 amendments were made to the Copyright Act to:

• promote creativity and exploitation of online technologies
• provide a practical enforcement regime
• promote access to copyright material online
• provide access and certainty for users of online material
• ensure educational institutions have reasonable access to online copyright material.

The Copyright Act now aims to be technology-neutral so that it won't go out of date with advances in technology. It deals with work in digital form. The Copyright Act uses the word "reproduction" to replace the word "copy" in many instances, and separates the reproduction of a work from the subsequent communication of the work.