Copyright is a type of protection for people who produce things like writing, images, music, choreography and films. Copyright is a legal right to prevent others from doing things like copying and making available to others, without permission. Copyright law comes from the Copyright Act and from court decisions.
Your choreography 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. A copyright owner can transfer the copyright, or parts of it, to others.
However, to be protected by copyright law, your choreography does need to be both 'original' and recorded in 'material form' (documented in some way—recorded on video or written down in dance notation).
For more information, visit the Australian Copyright Council website for their Choreographers and copyright factsheet.
Meeting your Copyright Act obligations
Get permission from the copyright owner
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.
Visit the Australian Copyright Council website for their Permission: How To Get It factsheet.
Always acknowledge the creator and get your use approved by the creator
Even if the creator of the work doesn't own copyright, they still have Moral rights, which means you are legally obligated to attribute/acknowledge creators of works and also to not do anything with a work that may damage the creator's reputation or be offensive to the creator.
Using other people's photographs
If displaying or publishing images of your work, you need to 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.
Dance schools
Licences to use music
If you are playing music or music videos in your dance classes, copying music or sound recordings to give to your students, or recording performances of your dance school events, you'll need music licences.
Dance schools who use music or music videos from the OneMusic repertoire (collection) in their businesses will need to get licences from OneMusic Australia, a joint licensing initiative of APRA AMCOS and PPCA, which commenced 1 July 2019.
There are other options for permission, which may include direct licensing arrangements with copyright owners, or solely using music outside the OneMusic Australia repertoire. If you make a direct arrangement only for your sound recording use or only for your musical work use, contact OneMusic Australia so they can adjust your licence fee.
OneMusic Australia – Dance and Performance Instructors and Dance
Schools licence is designed to enable the use of their music in a dance school or when tutoring clients in dance, acting or performance. Their music used in classes, lessons, rehearsals, dance events and concerts, recitals and performances are all part of this licence scheme.
- 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 long list of current copyright information sheets.
- The Copyright Agency is an Australian copyright management company whose role is to provide a bridge between creators and users of copyright material. Copyright Agency 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.