Q. Do I need to put a copyright symbol on my work to protect it?

Under Australian law, the "material form" of all original literary, dramatic and artistic works is automatically protected by copyright. Essentially, if it written or recorded, then you should assume it is protected - it does not need a copyright symbol or statement.

No registration is required, as works are "born" with copyright, and "All Rights Reserved" is the normal form that copyright takes.

However, you may wish to remind people the work is protected by copyright, make it clear who owns the copyright or provide a contact person for anyone seeking to ask permission to use the work. In which case, you could provide a statement such as:

© James Cook University, All Rights Reserved

You do not need to apply to use the copyright symbol if you wish to use it, you can simply add it to your work.

Including details such as the date or a more precise "owner" of the copyright can assist future users of your work:

© 2023 James Cook University Library, All Rights Reserved

© 2023, James Cook University. Contact the Education Librarian to discuss permission to use this work.

Creative Commons licences give certain permissions in advance, so people do not have to contact you to use that work, as long as their use falls within the conditions of the CC licence. Consider applying a CC licence to your work to make it more accessible while still outlining what use you are willing to allow.

If you wish to provide a Creative Commons licence, you do not need to include a "normal" copyright symbol or notice as well, as copyright is assumed in order for a CC licence to be used. You can use a copyright statement like this:

Except where otherwise noted, content in this document is licensed under a CC BY-SA 4.0 International Licence.

N.B. Make sure the authorship of the work is clear - there is little point in using a licence that requires attribution if people do not know who to attribute the work to.

If you have used official logos (like the JCU shield) and images that you do not have permission to make openly available with a CC licence (like images supplied by JCU Marketing), you should include a statement like this:

Content in this document is licensed under a CC BY-SA 4.0 International Licence, with the exception of all logos, images and third-party content (unless otherwise noted).