Copyright Agency Ltd


Copyright Agency Ltd is an Australian company incorporated under the Corporations Act 2001 for the purpose of providing institutions—especially educational institutions the use of copyright material, in print or electronic form.
Educational institutions may claim a Statutory Educational license under Part VB of the Copyright Act 1968 by:
  1. publishing a notice in the Commonwealth Government Gazette ; and
  2. Completing the Statutory Educational license notice and returning to CAL; and
  3. Entering into a CAL Educational license by completing the agreement and returning to CAL.
An annual fee is payable by participating educational institutions based on estimated usage of copyright material, usually determined by student numbers.
CAL centrally manages the reproduction rights of thousands of authors, journalists, surveyors, photographers, visual artistsm and publishers. Membership of CAL is free to all Australian copyright owners.
CAL collects the copying fees, deducts its administrative expenses, and distributes the balance annually to copyright owners based on the results of copying surveys.
CAL has been appointed by the Commonwealth Attorney-General to administer the licences.
Some commentators, such as Nicholas Gruen have been highly critical of the vigour with which CAL has pursued revenue, for instance collecting fees from schools for the photocopying of websites that are available to all to view on the internet or fees from decades old surveyors maps held in land registries for which surveyors have already been paid.