Your students' work
This section helps identify issues that school should be aware of surrounding copyright ownership of students' work, the rights of students, schools and teachers.
On this page:
- Who owns copyright in students' work?
- What rights do students, schools and teachers have?
- Moral rights
- Contract example of student copyright permission form
Who owns copyright in students' work?
Students own the copyright of any work that they create at school.
What rights do students, teachers and schools have?
If the school wants to publish or copy a student's work (such as putting it on the school website or reproducing it in publicity material), the school must get permission from the student's parents/guardians for primary students, plus the student's permission for secondary students.
Get permission
The simplest way to cover this is to ask students and their parents to sign a general copyright permission form when they start at your school. (This has the added benefit of ensuring new students and parents are aware of copyright issues.) Such permission should be limited to use of the work in restricted ways for educational and administrative purposes.
- For a full discussion of teachers' rights, see For teachers and contractors.
- For a full discussion of students' rights, see For students.
Moral rights
The student, as author of a work, retains his or her moral rights in the work. See Moral rights section in the What is copyright?
Students should be encouraged to identify themselves as the author of the work (by attaching their name to the work) and formally assert their moral right to be identified.
The school should obtain permission from the student's parent or guardian (in the case of primary students) and the student (in the case of secondary students) to copy or use the student's work in a restricted manner and continue to acknowledge the student as author of the work.