There is no government registration system for copyright protection in Australia. You do not need to publish your work, put a copyright notice on it, or to do anything else to be covered by copyright — the protection is free and automatic. There are no forms to fill in, and there are no fees to be paid. You do not have to lodge your work with a government agency or anwhere else.

Copyright is a type of legal protection for people who express ideas and information in certain forms. These forms include writing, music, visual images, moving images and computer programs. The legal protection is from the Copyright Act, a Commonwealth government law.

For more information about what copyright protects, see our information sheet "An introduction to copyright in Australia".

If something is covered by the Copyright Act, it is protected automatically from the time it is first written down or recorded in some way, provided it has resulted from its creator’s skill and effort and is not simply copied from another work. For example, as soon as a poem is written, or a song is recorded, it is protected.

The copyright notice

You do not need to put a "copyright notice" on your work for it to be protected in Australia. You may choose to put a copyright notice on your work to remind people that it is protected by copyright. In addition, if there is a dispute about the work, the notice can create a presumption that the work is protected by copyright, and that the copyright owner is the person or organisation whose name appears in the notice (these presumptions can be rebutted by evidence to the contrary).

You can put the notice on your work yourself; there is no formal procedure.

The notice is: © (or "Copyright") + copyright owner's name + year of first publication —for example: © Gus O’Donnell 1968.

How do I prove I'm the copyright owner if there's no registration system?

If there's a dispute about who created something protected by copyright it may need to be resolved by a court. A court would look at all the relevant evidence. The most important evidence would usually be oral evidence from the creator and from people who saw the material being created or who saw early copies. Other evidence may include drafts of the work.

Such cases are, however, extremely rare.

There are a number of reasons for this. First, someone who goes to court claiming they own copyright when they don�t runs very large financial risks, as they might have to pay not only compensation but also both their own and the other side�s legal costs. Second, if someone falsely claims in court that they have created a copyright work, they risk perjury charges (a criminal charge for lying to the court). Third, there are provisions in the Copyright Act which allow people who have been groundlessly threatened with copyright infringement to take action against the person making the threat.

Copyright protection in other countries

Australian copyright works are protected in most other countries, and copyright works from most other countries are protected in Australia.

Some countries, including the United States and Canada, have government registration systems. While it is not necessary to register for protection, registration can provide benefits in some cases in those countries. For information about registration in the United States, click here, and for information about registration in Canada click here.

For more information, see our information sheet "Copyright protection in other countries", which you can download from our Information Sheets page.

Presumptions from foreign registration in court proceedings in Australia

In some cases, registration with a foreign government copyright office, such as the United States Copyright Office, can assist with court proceedings in Australia, under sections 126A and 126B of the Copyright Act.

More information

We have more than 80 information sheets about a range of copyright issues.

We also publish more detailed information in our Books.

You may also be interested in our training program.

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