26/05/2008

Under the Copyright Act, a person who infringes copyright may, in some cases, be committing a criminal offence (as well as being liable to the owner of the copyright). It is, for example, an offence to make an infringing copy of a program in order to sell it. It is also an offence to advertise the supply of an infringing program, or to have a device (such as a computer) that you know you will use to infringe copyright.

 

The penalties vary according to the type of infringement, the circumstances, and whether the offender is an individual or a company. Some maximum penalties are listed above under the heading “Penalties”. Also, a court has the power to order the confiscation of equipment used to make the infringing copies (such as a computer used to copy software or digital material).

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15/06/2008

If you have created a computer manual and you are including screen dumps from someone else’s program, you are likely to need their permission. Some software manufacturers grant licences for this type of use; for example, Microsoft has various blanket licences on its website which allow its software to be used in certain ways for certain purposes. Your first steps should be to check the terms on which the software is licensed, and the website of the relevant company.

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26.5.2008

If there is no agreement about who owns copyright:

 

• and the program was created by an individual independent contractor, that person would own copyright;

• and a company was contracted to create a program, and the program was created by that company’s employee, the company would own the copyright;

• and the program was commissioned by a government (Commonwealth, State or Territory), copyright would be owned by that government.

 

In most cases, a commissioning party which does not own copyright is nevertheless entitled to use the program for the purposes for which it was commissioned.

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