You will need permission to do this if the material you are using is, for example, from commercially released material. Again, the relevant record companies and music publishers are likely to own the rights, so contact them for clearances. There have been Australian cases—in 2003 and 2005—in which courts have held that DJs and their labels had infringed copyright by recording and selling remixes of commercial music without permission from the owners of copyright in the material they had used. In each case, the DJs and their record companies had to pay not only legal costs, but also very large sums of money as compensation to the copyright owners.

You may, however, record and sell your own mixes if you write and record your own material, or only use licensed loops or samples.

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It could be argued that recording yourself mixing commercial material so you can improve your live mixes is covered by the “research or study” exception in the Copyright Act, which allows people to make a “fair dealing” with copyright material for their own research or study. However, you will need permission if you make copies of the recordings, or if you record the mixes for any other purpose.

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Your image is not protected by copyright. However, you may be able to stop a venue using your image without permission by using other laws—the law of passing off, the Trade Practices Act 1974 (Cth), or State and Territory fair trading laws. These areas of law concern conduct which may mislead or deceive the public. You will not necessarily be able to rely on these areas of law to stop the use of the photo. However, if you are concerned about the way the venue is using your image, you should get advice from a lawyer with the relevant experience.

(Performers’ rights only apply to recordings of performances: a photo is not a “recording” in this sense.)

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You generally need permission to play music or recordings in public. An APRA licence will cover you for almost all music and lyrics, while a PPCA licence will cover you for most recordings.

Many venues will already have both licences; even a live-band venue is likely to be playing CDs or tapes at various times (for example, between sets or on jukeboxes). If the venue you’re playing at is not covered, you can arrange for appropriate licences with APRA and PPCA just to cover the event at which you are DJing.

PPCA also offers a licence to mobile DJs: this covers events and functions that aren’t covered by a venue licence (for example, a corporate function held in a marquee in a park).

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Unless you own copyright in the material you wish to copy, or the copyright has expired, you will need permission to copy music from vinyl records to CD to use as a DJ. In 2003, several DJs were found to have infringed copyright when they remixed sound recordings, manufactured CDs of the remixed versions and offered them for sale, all without the permission of the recording companies as exclusive licensee of the copyright material.

You may be able to get a licence from the Australasian Performing Right Association (APRA) allowing you to transfer music into different formats.

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