The Hardcopy Licence

Under a Statutory Licence of the Copyright Act, educational institutions can reproduce copyright works for educational purposes. There have been changes of late in both copyright legislation and remuneration that apply to the Hardcopy Licence and its operation in schools.

The Copyright Amendment (Digital Agenda) 2000, resulted in two schemes that schools have to deal with under the Statutory Licence, they are the Hardcopy Licence and the Electronic Reproduction and Communication Licence. This division is based on both the originating format of the works to be reproduced and/or communicated, and the form of the reproduction. It has necessarily instigated some changes in regulations of the Hardcopy Licence scheme.

Further, early in 2002, the Copyright Tribunal introduced a new charging regime for equitable remuneration between the schools sector and Collecting Agency Limited (CAL) for the Hardcopy Licence.

The Hardcopy Licence tells you how much you can copy from works that are in hardcopy form (eg, for photocopying or scanning from a book other printed material). The Electronic Reproduction and Communication Licence tells you how much you can copy from works that originate in electronic form (eg, saving a file to disk, or printing from the Internet or a CDROM).

The administration of the schemes (ie, how you record your copying and how payment is worked out) is different depending on the form of the reproduction. For example, the hardcopy licence sampling scheme will apply for all hardcopy reproductions. Recording and payment of all electronic reproductions and communications will be governed by the Electronic Reproduction and Communication Licence.

To understand the way the statutory licence works following the Digital Agenda Act changes, you have to ask 2 questions:

1. How much can I copy?
2. How will my copying be recorded and pad for?

The following table explains how these questions work in practice:

Background

To utilise the Hardcopy Licence scheme schools need to:

• provide Copyright Agency Limited (CAL) with a Remuneration Notice based on a sampling or records system.
• pay an agreed licence fee that is collected by Copyright Agency Limited (CAL) on behalf of the authors and creators.

In Australia all government, Catholic schools and TAFE institutes are licenced in terms of a Hardcopy Agreement with CAL. Many other independent schools and educational institutions are licenced; however if in doubt check your licence status with your school’s administrators.

Single or multiple copies of works may be made by, or on behalf of an educational institution, within the limits set out in Part VB of the Act if:

• a remuneration notice is in force; and
• the copying is for educational purposes; and
• the copies are not supplied to anyone for a profit.

If you require refreshment on the limits that apply under the hard copy licence, further information is supplied on this site.

Distinctions in type of reproductions

The recent Digital Amendment Act ushered in the following material distinctions under the existing Hardcopy Licence for educational institutions. The following reproductions are within the Hardcopy Licence scheme, in terms of determining the limits of what can be copied:

• scanning from paper; and
• re-keying paper copies and storing them in a digital medium.

The important element is that the original must be paper-based, therefore this licence does not permit reproductions from digital to digital form, for this you need to have a new Electronic Reproduction and Communication Licence.

The Equitable Remuneration Agreement

Education authorities centrally negotiate and pay the charges associated with the Hardcopy Licence agreement for the schools sector. Recently there have been significant changes in the equitable remuneration agreement based on a new determination handed down by the Copyright Tribunal.

Essentially the Tribunal’s decision has two main ingredients. Firstly an introduction of a “per page rate” paid by schools (instead of a fixed amount per FTG), and secondly rate-variation based on the types of material that are reproduced..

The new copying rates are as follows:

• basic copying – 4 cents per page;
• short stories and plays – 6 cents per page;
• poetry and artistic works – 8 cents per page; and
• overhead transparencies/slides/permanent display copies – 40 cents per page

As the new agreement has been backdated to 1997 it represents a significant retrospective budget item for educational authorities to meet.

Trends in recent years indicate an escalation in both hard copy and digital information consumption in schools. As schools do not directly pay for their own material usage, staff are often ignorant of expenditure in this area.

It is important that all schools staff recognise that increasing consumption of materials is driving increased charges under the statutory licence arrangements. In part that is why schools are being asked to consider a more responsible approach to information usage.