Copyright for the dance industry factsheet #3

Copyright is a type of protection for people who produce things like writing, images, music, computer programs, choreography and films. It is a legal right to prevent others from doing things like copying and making available online, without permission. Copyright law comes from the Copyright Act and from court decisions.

Your work and copyright

There is no system of registration for copyright protection in Australia. You do not need to publish your work or put a copyright notice on it to be covered by copyright—the protection is free and automatic. Australian copyright works are protected in most other countries, and copyright works from most other countries are protected in Australia. An owner of copyright can transfer the copyright, or parts of it, to others.

Your obligations

There are legal obligations to attribute/acknowledge creators of works (printed text, images, music etc) and also to refrain from doing anything with a work that may damage the designer’s reputation or be offensive to the designer. You need copyright permission when:

• you use something protected by copyright
• you use a 'substantial part'
• the copyright has not expired
• your use is controlled by the copyright owner (the copyright owner has the exclusive right to make the use)
• your use is not covered by a special exception

Key organisations

The Arts Law Centre of Australia (ALCA) is the national community legal centre for the arts. ALCA gives preliminary advice and information to artists and arts organisations across all artforms on a wide range of arts-related legal and business matters including contracts, copyright, business names and structures, defamation, insurance and employment.

The Australian Copyright Council (ACC) is an independent non-profit organisation. Their website has a huge list of current copyright information sheets.

Copyright Agency Limited (CAL) is an Australian copyright management company whose role is to provide a bridge between creators and users of copyright material. CAL represents authors, journalists, visual artists, photographers and newspaper, magazine and book publishers as their non-exclusive agent to license the copying of their works to the general community.

Special licenses

Over the years Ausdance has negotiated special music copyright and dance licences to decrease confusion and to clarify the obligations regarding the video recording of dance studio recitals and concerts.

Dance schools licence

The Australasian Mechanical Copyright Owners Society (AMCOS) and Australian Performing Rights Association (APRA) have a single combined annual license especially for dance and callisthenics schools. This license allows you to play copyright music—both live and recorded—during dance classes and at concerts/performances where there is no admission fee charged. If the audience pays to attend, you need to negotiate a further license with your local APRA office.

Ausdance special licence

This licence from the Phonographic Performance Company of Australia (PPCA) allows you to publicly perform/play commercial sound recordings: i.e. to play a CD in a dance class. The PPCA licence is separate to, and distinct from, an APRA licence. If you publicly perform a sound recording and the underlying musical work you will need to apply for a licence from both PPCA and APRA.

Amcos/aria licence

This is a special combination licence covering a number of ‘reproduction’ (i.e. copying) activities controlled by either AMCOS or ARIA. The licence fee charged takes into account the fact that a number of reproduction and synchronisation activities, covering both musical works and sound recordings, are collectively covered by this licence. (If each of these activities were licensed separately, the user would expect to pay a considerably higher licence fee. In particular, the audio recording component of this licence alone would attract a higher fee than the fee quoted for this combined licence.)

FAQs about music & copyright

Copyright and video

Videoing a dance recital involves the incorporation of music into a video sound track. This is not covered by any of the dance teachers’ class licences previously mentioned. For such occasions, AMCOS and ARIA have established a joint blanket licence, the AMCOS/ARIA Licence for Dance Schools subject to certain restrictions:

• Dance studios employing professional video operators should ensure that the video operator holds a current annual ‘Special Event Video Licence’ with a specific licence number, or phone AMCOS direct to check if a particular operator is licensed.
• Dance studios undertaking their own video operation should take out an AMCOS/ARIA License for Dance Schools. This licence does not give permission for the use of music in a video that is to be commercially marketed.

Restrictions on authorised video recordings

1. The recording may only be authorised under the above Agreement where the recipients of the recording are the people of whom the recording is made, and where the recording is to be used for those individuals’ private viewing only.
2. The recording of any specific musical, ballet or opera is not authorised under this Agreement. Permission for such recording must be obtained directly from the music publisher (or agent) from whom the rights to stage/perform the musical, ballet or opera have been obtained.
3. Under no circumstances is any public screening of a recording authorised under this Agreement.
4. The dance studio can make no more than 75 videos each year. For example: a studio may decide to make two copies each of five performances and 65 copies of the end-of-year recital, giving a total of 75 videos. 1

If you are screening a commercial video at an event you need an AMCOS–ARIA Domestic Use Video Licence Application – Single Event

Photographs

When displaying or publishing images of your work and/or your students, you should get permission—preferably in writing—from the photographer and everyone appearing in the image. Always acknowledge the photographer in the accompanying caption. It is also a good idea to accompany any photograph with as much information as possible, i.e. location, date, event etc.