Class/Workshops Agreement
COPYRIGHT LAW
Students must be aware that the projects taught at the Guild and the notes and drawings provided by the tutor are the intellectual property of the author. They are protected by Australian Copyright Law, which prohibits their reproduction by any other person for the purpose of teaching groups or individuals, whether or not a fee is charged, without the permission of the tutor.
Class notes and design drawings are distributed to class participants for their own personal use and solely for the purpose of the class. They must not be copied or otherwise reproduced for any other purpose without the written permission of the tutor.
Tutor’s samples and demonstrations may not be photographed or videoed without permission of the tutor.
The stitches themselves are free of copyright but the resultant work is protected by Australian Copyright law as a work of artistic craftsmanship. It is frequently assumed that a minor variation to a design, such as a change to the colour scheme or a substitution of a new stitch for a stitch in the original design, is sufficient to avoid infringement of copyright. This is not the case if what is done amounts, in a qualitative sense, to reproduction of the original work in the sense that it still embodies the same essential appearance.
When class work bearing the tutor’s design is displayed at the Guild or elsewhere, the tutor must be acknowledged as the designer.
Original works of the tutor are subject to the Moral Rights provision of the Copyright Act, giving the author the right to be identified as the author of the work and the right of integrity, protecting the work from any treatment by others, which destroys or devalues its essential artistic quality.