In the University context, intellectual property (IP) is the ideas or information that result from research carried out by individual students, staff or collaborative groups.
Become familiar with the RMIT University Intellectual Property Policy to understand the University's position on ownership of IP and how it protects the rights of the University, and of individual staff and students as creators.
Copyright protects an original expression in material form of ideas or information (i.e. the intellectual property), not the ideas or information themselves.
Copyright of published research generally belongs to the researcher or to the publisher, whereas the copyright of learning and teaching materials produced by RMIT staff generally belongs to the University.
Creators of copyright works have moral rights under the Copyright Act 1968 (Cth). While copyright can be transferred, as may be the case if you publish your research, moral rights are retained by individual creators.
Creators have three moral rights:
Just as there are rights and protections for your work, you need to be aware of the IP, copyright and moral rights of others when producing your own work. These vary depending on whether you are producing work as an HDR candidate, an academic researcher, or a teacher.
The resources below will help you understand how you can use the work of others without infringing their IP, copyright or moral rights.