Copyright is one type of intellectual property. The others include patents, trademarks and designs. It is a bundle of rights - economic, legal, political and moral. Copyright is a type of personal property right that is founded on a person's creative work. It is designed to protect the copyright owner against unauthorised use by others of their creative work. While there is no requirement to attain a specific literary level, the output must take a tangible form. Copyright only applies to work that can be reproduced and is not applicable to ideas.

In Australia, the Copyright Act 1968 and the Copyright Amendment (Digital Agenda) Act 2000 gives exclusive (but limited) rights to copyright owners, such as authors or publishers, as to how their material may be used. These rights include the right to copy, adapt, publish, and publicly perform the copyright material. Copyright owners also have an exclusive right of "communication to the public" covering:

• making their copyright material available to the public online (e.g. via the web); or
• electronically transmitting (e.g. via email or FTP) their copyright material to the public.

Note that copyright does not prevent the physical ownership of copyright material, e.g. purchasing a book.
Copying for research or study purposes is permitted, and is known as fair dealing. This allows a person to copy limited portions of a copyright protected work for purposes of research or study.
Under the "fair dealing" provision, it is considered fair to copy:

• one chapter of a book, or up to 10% of the number of pages
• one chapter or 10% of the number of words for text material in electronic form
• one article from an issue of a serial, newspaper or magazine - or more than one article if each article relates to the same subject matter.

For more information see:

• The Australian Copyright Council's Information Sheet - Research or Study (G053)
• What is copyright?