The copyright notice is not required for copyright protection in Australia. It notifies people that the work is protected by copyright and identifies the person from whom permission should be sought. If you own copyright in a dance sheet or in a protected line dance, you can put the notice on your work yourself – there is no formal procedure.
The notice consists of the symbol “©”, followed by the name of the copyright owner, and the year of first publication. For example: © L.R. Vine 2006.
The general rule is that copyright in a protected line dance or in a line dance sheet is owned by the person who created it. However, the situation may be different if a person is an employee and created the work as part of their job, or the person “assigned” (that is, sold or transferred) the copyright to someone else.
You will usually need permission from copyright owners to tape music. Generally, you will need to contact the owner of copyright in the music and lyrics (usually a music publisher). You will also generally need to contact the owner of copyright in the sound recording (usually a record company) if you are taping from cassettes, records or CDs.
The Australasian Mechanical Copyright Owners’ Society (AMCOS) and the Australian Record Industry Association (ARIA) may be able to assist you in obtaining permission to make compilation tapes.
You may need to contact a copyright owner if you want to dance, or copy dance sheets for, a protected line dance, or if you want to copy dance sheets for an unprotected line dance rather than write out the instructions for the dance using your own skill and effort.
If you are having trouble contacting a copyright owner, you will need to do a bit of detective work. The fact that a copyright owner is hard to find does not mean that you do not need permission to reproduce or perform their work. Dance clubs and associations may be able to assist.
If you want to perform a protected dance you will need permission from the copyright owner. However, if the dance is not protected by copyright, no permission is needed.