Copyright Licence Information

The Licence

As a celebrant you may need to copy and share poems, literature and other text with your clients and their guests. As a member of Coalition of Celebrant Associations (COCA) you are covered by the copyright licensing arrangements in place for literary works (referred to as ‘works’) between COCA and Copyright Agency.

Under the Copyright Act 1968 (Cth) a licence or permission from the rightsholder is required to make a copy or digitally communicate their works, unless an exception applies. Copyright Agency’s Copyright Licence for Celebrants provides COCA and its members the right to use millions of books, poems, newspapers, magazines and other publications without the need to ask for permission each time.

About us

Copyright Agency is an Australian not-for-profit collecting society that licenses rights on behalf of members who are publishers, authors, poets and other rightsholders, as well as the members of our global affiliates.
Copyright Agency collects licence fees for the reuse of text and images and distributes these as copyright royalty payments to
its members.

How it works

The licence allows celebrants to copy and digitally communicate literary works for the purposes of preparing and conducting a ceremony.
You are also permitted to digitally store material for future use in ceremonies while you are a financial member of COCA.

This licence is centrally administered by COCA which enables an easier and more cost-effective way of copyright compliance for individual celebrants.

You benefit from a significant financial discount by having the licence included in your membership.

What we do with the licence fees

As a not-for-profit organisation, Copyright Agency distributes approximately 85c in every dollar collected from licence fees to creators, authors, publishers and journalists. This allows our members to continue to develop new, high-quality content that will be available
for you to use.

What the celebrants copyright licence allows

For the purposes of conducting or preparing a ceremony

Photocopying or making a digital copy of a work

Making a work available in a PowerPoint or other visual presentation

Share a digital copy with a client by email

Additional rights for sharing Australian  newspaper articles with the public

Display up to 12 Australian newspaper articles on your own website at a time for up to 12 months.

Post up to 12 Australian newspaper articles on your social media channels, such as Facebook, LinkedIn, X and Instagram, each year.

If the work is commercially available, you can only copy a certain amount of it

Books – The greater of one chapter or 10% of the pages

Electronic works, including websites – Up to 10% of the number of words

What the celebrants copyright licence doesn’t allow

The licence does not cover

Song lyrics (including hymns) or sheet music

Audio recordings, music or motion pictures

Photographs or other artistic works from within a newspaper article separately from the text.

Indemnity cover within the copyright licence

Copyright Agency provides an indemnity against copying of non-member works.
This means that if a copyright infringement claim is made against you for the use a work which does not belong to a Copyright Agency member then Copyright Agency will indemnify the celebrant or the association up to a minimum of $25,000 and a maximum of the licence fees paid since the inception of the licence.

The work cannot be one which is on the Copyright Agency Excluded Works list and must
be used in accordance with the licence. – Up to 10% of the number of words

Excluded works

Copyright Agency’s excluded works list is available online at copyright.com.au/excluded-works

What else do I need to do to ensure I’m copyright compliant?

If you are copying content to give to third parties, either as a handout or via an email – you need to ensure that it is marked with or accompanied by the below wording: