Copyright expiration in Australia

The law has evolved over the years, and previously photographs were treated differently from other works.

Any photo, published or unpublished, anonymous or attributed, taken before 1 January 1955 is out of copyright and in the public domain.

The copyright in the words for a newspaper article (or in a drawing) is owned by the writer (or illustrator, etc.).

This "in general" applies even if the creator was an employee of the newspaper which holds the actual copyright.

[4] Recipes including Captain Cook's carrot marmalade[5] were published on FAIR's website, breaking the existing law.

[6] In June 2017, a law was passed which included a 'life of the author plus 70 years' copyright term for unpublished works,[7] which came into effect on 1 January 2019.

[8] The National Library Picture Catalogue[9] states that permission must be asked to copy photos from their site.