Copyright and permissions

Fair dealing provisions

Under the fair dealing provisions of the Copyright Act 1968, you can reproduce certain copyright material without needing the permission of the copyright owner for the purposes of research and study, or criticism or review, providing your use of the material is 'fair'. More information on the fair dealing provisions is available at Copyright at UWA.

Copyright material log

It’s important to keep a record of all third-party material you locate during your research, including a record of the copyright owner. You can record the details in a simple table or a spreadsheet.

Elements to include are: date you located the work, title and source of work, author/copyright owner name and contact details, page number or location in your research that you want to use the material in, whether permission is needed, and any conditions of use.

Date	Title/source	Author/copyright owner	Page number or location in your research	Permission required?	Conditions of use?	Permission obtained?

Download a more detailed asset register template below:

• Asset Register Example [XLS, 13KB]

Obtaining permission

Unless your use is covered by an explicit licence (such as Creative Commons), or copyright in the material has expired, you will need the copyright owner's permission to use their material in publications. Permission must also be sought for unpublished material such as manuscripts and letters, confidential information and material subject to a contractual arrangement.

As seeking copyright permission can be a lengthy process, allow time for this – and, if necessary, follow up your initial request with a reminder.

To obtain permission:

• Go to the source of the work to see if there is a licence which specifies conditions of use.
• If you can't find a clear copyright owner, contact the publisher for clarification.
• If permission is required, check if the publisher or owner has provided an online form; otherwise make your request in writing, either via email or using a permission letter. You can download a permission letter template:  Permission letter template [DOTX 105KB]
• When requesting permission, explicitly state how much of the work you wish to use and how you wish to use it (in a book chapter, a journal article, or other form).
• If permission is granted subject to a contract or requiring a fee, and you are unwilling to either sign or pay, you can seek further advice from the Librarian Support Team.

If permission has been granted it is important that you adhere to the UWA Research Integrity Policy [doc, 251 KB]. Ensure that you:

• record and store the documentation as proof of copyright compliance
• adhere to the copyright owner’s conditions of use
• acknowledge the copyright owner and the source of the material through accurate referencing

All third-party materials (such as images, diagrams and tables) must be correctly attributed. Providing a URL is not enough – all citations should include the name of the creator (where known), year (of publication, where known), title, source (website URL) and other relevant information. This relates to the concept of moral rights [the Copyright at UWA webpage has more information on this], which are a creator’s right to correct attribution (to be identified as author of work). For guidance on referencing, refer to the UWA Library referencing guides.

In some circumstances you may find that you cannot obtain permission. If you cannot obtain permission to use the copyright material, you have three options:

• Remove the copyright material from the publication.
• Try to find an alternative source to replace the copyright material [find out more in the 'Free to use resources' section of the Copyright at UWA webpage].
• Contact the Librarian Support Team to discuss your options further.

Copyright ownership at UWA

Under the University’s Intellectual Property Policy, “the University owns Intellectual Property created by an Employee pursuant to a contract of service to the University excluding Teaching Materials and Scholarly Works.” 

Students own the intellectual property in work that they create unless they assign it in writing to others. Students always own the copyright in their theses.

For more information, see the UWA Intellectual Property Policy.

Include a full citation on your work

Along with the copyright statement, include the full citation for the work itself on each of your works, in your preferred reference style. This enables others to easily identify you as the creator and to correctly cite you in their own work. You may wish to also include contact details, such as an email address, to enable others to contact you to seek permission to reuse your work. 

Enable others to reuse your work with a Creative Commons licence

Creative Commons licences allow creators to grant permission to others to reuse their work within specified terms. There are six Creative Commons licences to choose from, and all six licences require attribution of the creator – so you will always be credited for your work. When you publish with a Creative Commons licence on your work, you still retain copyright of your work. 

The UWA Research Integrity Policy encourages the use of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) licence; see section 10(B)(9): "Researchers will - make publications available on Open Access under the most appropriate Creative Commons licence, and preferably the CC BY licence." 

Scholarly publishers will often offer one or more Creative Commons licence to choose from when publishing your work open access. See the Library’s Open Access Toolkit for more guidance on using Creative Commons licences. 

If you self-publish, you can simply add a Creative Commons licence statement to the beginning of your work; see the example on page 2 of this UWA Law School report, and in the footer of the UWA Library Guides webpage.

If you are publishing through the UWA Profiles and Research Repository, you can select your preferred Creative Commons licence during the upload process; see the UWA Profiles and Research Repository Support guide for more information.

Deposit your work in the UWA Profiles and Research Repository

Depositing a copy of your publication into the UWA Profiles and Research Repository can help to protect your work as:

• The full bibliographic citation identifies you as the author and ensures the work is traceable. It cannot be mistaken for an 'orphan work' where copyright owners are difficult to identify.

• There is a copyright statement alerting users to the conditions of use and the need to request permission for re-use.

See the UWA Profiles and Research Repository Support guide for guidance on adding publications to the Repository.