The Smartcopying website is the official guide designed to provide copyright information for schools and TAFE in Australia.

Did you know? Copying activities include:

Scanning, Downloading, Printing, Saving to another device such as a tablet, USB, mobile or hard drive, Photocopying, Taking a digital photo, Performance activities such as playing music and films, Singing songs, Playing instruments, Acting out a play, Reading a book or Reciting a poem to the class.

I searched two subsections of the Smartcopying website to gain insight into what copyright is relevant to the Music strand of the Creative Arts key learning area. Not only do music teachers need to be aware of specific AMCOSm (Australian Mechanical Copyright Owners Society)  and APRA (Australasian Performing Right Association) education licences, but all teachers should be able to reference the “Do’s and Don’t’s.”  Any teacher may decide to include aspects of music such as using sheet music and sound recordings etc into their teaching or other educational experiences.

Under the Australian Copyright Act 1968 section 28, teachers and students can:

• Sing songs and play instruments
• Play sound recordings using a tape/CD/DVD player, electronic reticulation system, learning management system, interactive whiteboard or virtual classroom software
• Play a film (VHS, DVD or online film) that contains music using a DVD player, electronic reticulation system or learning management system

Copying Sheet Music in Schools

My daughter is in the senior school band. It is interesting to note that a teacher can copy up to 10% of a music resources book, according to the Australian Copyright Act. That is the same as for any other printed resource. Schools have an agreement with AMCOS to allow schools to make multiple copies. This is beneficial for practising and performing musical pieces of work, for example in a school assembly or musical where multiple groups or classes of students may be working together on the performance. There are, of course, limits depending according to the type of print music, the number of originals and whether the school is Primary or Secondary.

Sound Recordings

Sound Recordings are recorded versions of musical works.  Examples include Apple or Spotify tracks, MP3 files, vinyl, CDs, audio cassettes, reel to reel tapes and any other method for storing sounds. The copyright associated with sound recordings is important because many times audio can be played throughout the school day.  Teachers can upload sound recordings to a school intranet in order to play them in class, but they should remove them, or disable student access to the sounds recordings, as soon as the class is over.

For more clarification on music copyright for school use visit:

 https://smartcopying.edu.au/music-copyright-guide-for-schools/