Q. What are copyright exceptions and what is 'fair dealing'?

The Copyright Act provides exceptions which enable some use of copyright material without the permission of the copyright owner in certain circumstances. The most important exceptions permit "fair dealings" with copyright material for certain purposes:

• research or study (10% or on chapter/article)
• criticism or review (must acknowledge the work)
• reporting of news
• parody and satire
• giving of professional advice by a lawyer or a patent or trade mark attorney
• making accessible format copies by, or on behalf of, a person with a disability.

Educational institutions also have special agreements with copyright owners to allow them to digitise and electronically communicate copyright material, as long as the use is "fair" and falls within the scope of the agreements.

See the Australian Copyright Council's fact sheet on Fair Dealing linked below

Some works may be copied under Creative Commons licence.