Copyright Advice for Students

Australian copyright law allows you as a student to copy and use limited amounts of other people’s material (third party material protected by copyright) in your study or research without their permission and free of charge.

What can you copy?

Teaching materials and resources provided to you at UTS are protected by copyright. Whilst you are permitted to access and use those materials and resources for your own educational purposes, you are not permitted to re-use them without permission of the copyright owner. You are not permitted to:

  • sell them
  • give them to someone else
  • publish them in any way other than permitted by the copyright owner.

Improper or illegal use of teaching materials may lead to prosecution for copyright infringement.

Resources

Reference and acknowledge the copied work

When you have copied, reproduced, or used other people’s material in your work, you need to correctly acknowledge the author and reference their material.

The APA (American Psychological Association) referencing style is the most common style in use at UTS. Other styles in use are Harvard UTS, AGLC and Chicago (found on the Other Referencing Resources page).

Seeking permission to use copyright material

If you want to copy more than you are permitted as a student or researcher, you will need to seek permission from the copyright owner.

See Seeking Permission in the Copyright toolbox of Manage Your Content for details.

Publishing your work

When you are ready to publish or promote your student work outside of UTS you will need to reconsider any copyright material contained in your work.

Resources

UTS’ ownership of your work

In most cases UTS students retain ownership of their student work. However, some exceptions and conditions apply, for example, in certain cases UTS will keep a copy of your work. The UTS Intellectual Property Policy specifies the conditions for which UTS will retain ownership over the work produced by UTS students and researchers.

Get Help

Contact the Library for copyright assistance.