The artwork may not be yours to print

Who owns what on one sheet

Picture a flyer for a cafe: an illustration of a coffee cup drawn by a designer, a photograph of the room, and a harbour skyline with the Opera House in it. One sheet, and it can carry three different owners.

A commission does not hand the copyright over by itself. Under Australian law, a contractor automatically owns the intellectual property they create, and if the hirer wants to own it the contract must state this (business.gov.au). IP Australia puts the same rule plainly: IP created by a contractor is the property of the contractor unless otherwise stated in the contract. Copyright itself begins with the creator, or in some cases their employer, who can pass it to someone else, for example by selling or assigning the right (Attorney-General's Department).

A photograph is its own case. Where a photograph taken after 30 July 1998 is commissioned from someone other than the photographer, the commissioner owns the copyright only when the photograph was made for private or domestic use, and the National Library of Australia gives a family portrait or a wedding photograph as its examples. A photograph of a shopfront for a flyer is nothing like that, so the commission alone does not change who holds it. Where an employed photographer takes the picture in the course of the job, the employer holds it instead, with one carve-out: where the employer publishes a newspaper or magazine, the photographer keeps control of reuse in a book or a news clipping service (National Library of Australia).

A place can be an owner too. The Sydney Opera House Trust reserves commercial use of its brand and any association with it for partners and approved licensees, and permission for commercial or promotional use is given only in limited circumstances, under a licence (Sydney Opera House Trust). The Trust says a photograph of the Opera House cannot be used to sell unrelated goods or services without permission and a licence. There is one relief for a skyline shot: where the Opera House is part of the incidental geography, takes up less than a third of the image and is no more prominent than the other landmarks, the Trust says the depiction should not be a problem (Sydney Opera House Trust).

What the contract decides

The contract is where ownership is settled, and silence favours the contractor (business.gov.au and IP Australia).

An owner can move the right on: the creator, or in some cases their employer, obtains the rights when the material is first created, and can transfer them, for example by selling or assigning them (Attorney-General's Department). The department's advice is to seek written permission wherever possible, to avoid relying on oral statements that may be difficult to prove or enforce.

One thing to keep in view for the customer: the owner of the product is not always the owner of the copyright material in it, and one image can have different owners for different components (Business Queensland).

The printer's side of the question

This is where a print run meets the Copyright Act 1968 (Cth). The copyright in a work is infringed by a person who is not the owner, and who does an act in the copyright without the owner's licence, or authorises the doing of such an act (s 36(1)).

"Authorising" is not a vague idea. In deciding whether a person authorised the act, the matters a court takes into account include how far the person had the power to prevent it, the nature of any relationship between them and the person who did it, and whether they took reasonable steps to prevent or avoid it, including complying with relevant industry codes of practice (s 36(1A)).

The practical answer is permission. Copyright material can be used without infringing if the owner gives permission, or if the use is covered by one of the exceptions or statutory licences in the Act, and where permission is needed it comes from the copyright owner (Attorney-General's Department).

A logo, a photograph found online, a place

Some logo owners are blunt about it: the QBCC says its logo cannot be used at all on a business's own promotional collateral, and that any use of it is a breach of the Copyright Act 1968 (Queensland Building and Construction Commission).

A picture taken from a website or a social page is not free because it was easy to copy. Check ownership before reproducing anything: a product's owner is not always the copyright owner, and one image can carry more than one owner (Business Queensland). Where permission is needed, it is the copyright owner who gives it (Attorney-General's Department).

So the cafe's flyer can carry three pictures and three owners: the illustration stays the designer's unless the contract says otherwise, the photograph has its own owner, and the skyline needs the Trust's permission only where the Opera House is more than incidental to it. For each picture, the run needs the owner's permission or a use the Copyright Act allows.