Copyright Agency welcomes Copyright Tribunal decision in Universities Australia case
June 1, 2022
I am pleased to inform you that yesterday we received a gratifying result in our action against Universities Australia (UA) in the Copyright Tribunal. The Tribunal has set the 2019 fee at $35.1M, to be applied as a per student fee, with indexation to apply for the years 2020 through to 2022. This is an excellent outcome for our members, recognising the contribution they make to the Education sector and fairly remunerating them for use of the materials they produce.
Universities Australia (UA) represented all 39 Australian universities in the proceedings. The Copyright Tribunal was asked to consider the value of the statutory licence. This covers copyright material that is a core input into teaching at Australian universities and which is relied on to copy and share extensive amounts of educational content.
The action was only commenced after extensive commercial negotiations with UA did not result in a new agreement. The hearing took place remotely over three weeks in September 2020 and many of our members provided crucial evidence, including into the value of their work.
As is often the case, there are a number of matters yet to be finalised. We will provide a full update as soon as possible. In the meantime, please join with me in thanking our internal and external team, and all of our members who so generously gave evidence in support.
Kind regards,
Jo Johnston