ETL503 – 4.1 Music Copyright in the Primary School setting
Teachers regularly use music in the school setting, but what are the copyright laws in Australia that must be adhered to? According to Smartcopying, the official guide to copyright for Australian schools and TAFE, music in schools refers to “both musical works and sound recordings” (Smartcopying, Music, 12 August 2021).
In my particular primary school setting, we are blessed to have a specialist music teacher who provides lessons to students each week. Although as part of my TL role I provided the outline for copyright when it was updated this year, all staff were also made aware of these updates too as we were needing to teach remotely. As part of this challenging time of online learning, all staff needed to be aware of the implications of using music in the digital environment, especially when recording themselves or creating videos for their students. In addition, on returning to school, uploading school events such as award presentations were also necessary, as was liturgies and masses (being that we are a Catholic school).
Using music for videos or presentations can be incorporated when it is uploaded to a password-protected intranet or school website. It can also be shared to the school community via email or message through an educational app (such as Compass, but excludes apps such as Snapchat or TikTok). It is pertinent to mention that the school CANNOT upload the content to any social media platforms such as Facebook. Music recording companies may request the event be taken down from the social media platform.
The making and recording of school events is allowable under Australian copyright if it is performed or played and must display ‘This recording has been made under a licence from AMCOS and ARIA for school purposes only’ (Smartcopying, Music, 12 August 2021). For Catholic schools. under section 106 of the Copyright Act, permits schools to play sound recordings in public, such as at school events. In religious services our school often uses music to engage students, when we returned to school during term 4 this year, important celebrations, such as end-of-year mass needed to be live-streamed, to accommodate parents who could not attend the school grounds at the time. Since 30 March 2021, Smartcopying the Religious Education Coordinator needed to be aware of the implications of live-streaming and recording the service when music was involved, since this was a school-based event, and not held in the church, the national schools music licenses were applicable.
