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Copyright licensing checklist
Overview
This document describes a number of issues that should be considered when a copyright licence is being developed and applied to some material. Some AEShareNet licences have limited opportunities for the Licensor to modify the default licence conditions; while AEShareNet-C provides more varied opportunities for customisation. The Licensor is the party granting the copyright licence.
Considerations
A copyright licence may be written and restricted in any of a number of ways. Where necessary the law will try to infer the intentions of each party, but it is preferable to be explicit.
Any and all of the issues below may need to be considered when developing a copyright licence.
- What subject matter is to be covered by the licence? What type of subject matter is involved e.g. printed material, pictorial, audio-visual, software, data or multimedia?
- Who will be the beneficiary of the licence - the requesting party or the organisation to which he or she belongs?
- Does the licence include a right to sub-licence? Does the Licensor wish to prescribe the term of any sub-licensing?
- How pro-active does the Licensor wish to be in managing the commercialisation activity?
- Is the Licensor interested in marketing or exploiting the material itself?
- Is the licence exclusive or non-exclusive? If exclusive, then the Licensor will be unable to use the material itself.
- Is the licence for a limited duration?
- Is it to be revocable at will by the Licensor?
- Will the licence extend to acts done anywhere in the world, or is it limited to a particular territory such as Australia and New Zealand?
- Does the Licensor wish to obtain a share of royalties?
- Does the Licensor wish to be provided with copies of any publication which incorporates the licensed material?
- Conversely, is the Licensor to be obliged to provide updates of the material from time to time?
- How much money is involved?
- Will there be repeated use of the material?
- What will be the extent of the use of the material? What acts of copyright (eg. copying, publication, broadcasting, etc) are covered?
- Will the material be reproduced only in facsimile form (if a document) or will it be incorporated in digital form?
- Will it be manipulated, enhanced or merged with other data or material in digital form to produce derivative materials? If so, who will own copyright in the derivative version or enhancements?
- Policy considerations - does the Licensor wish to be associated with the material i.e. have any attribution of authorship?
- Liability considerations - is the Licensor at risk in the event reliance is placed on the material (i.e. in the event of an error)?
- Is the Licensor interested in marketing or exploiting the material itself?
- Has a license in fact already been granted?
- A License may be granted orally.
- Implied licences may be granted by the copyright owner for a purchaser of materials to use them in particular ways.
- A Licence may take the form of a casual exchange of letters between the copyright owner and the prospective user.
- A Licence may take the form of formally written legal agreements between the copyright owner and the prospective user.
