Commonwealth copyright usage survey 2026
As an APS employee, you may receive an email from ORIMA Research [surveys@orima.com] to participate in a Commonwealth copyright usage survey during a 4-week period in February 2026. If you do receive an invitation, we encourage you to complete the survey on the day you receive it – even if you haven’t done any copying.
What the survey is about
In partnership with Copyright Agency, we are undertaking a survey about your use of copyright material for work purposes.
Why the survey is needed
Under the Copyright Act 1968 (Cth), the Commonwealth has a statutory licence to copy material without infringing copyright. In return, the relevant copyright collecting society is paid equitable remuneration to be redistributed to rights holders. To determine the amount of remuneration to be paid, the estimated number of copies made for the services of the Commonwealth must be taken into account.
The survey is part of the Commonwealth’s agreement with Copyright Agency, which we manage on behalf of the Commonwealth. The data received from the survey will help inform our future licensing arrangements with Copyright Agency.
Who is Copyright Agency
Copyright Agency is a copyright collecting society that collects licence fees from users of copyright text and images and distributes royalties to creators and publishers for the reuse of their work. Copyright Agency’s members include authors, journalists, poets, playwrights, publishers, visual artists, photographers, cartoonists, illustrators and surveyors.
Time required
You are encouraged to complete the survey on the day that you receive it. It will only take 5 to 10 minutes to complete. Please fill out the survey even if you haven’t done any copying – a nil response through the survey is important to getting complete and accurate data.
Who is conducting the survey
ORIMA Research is managing the survey. If you are selected, you will receive an email from ORIMA Research [surveys@orima.com] with instructions on how to participate.
How ORIMA Research obtained your email address
Your email address has been randomly selected from the APS Employment Database managed by the Australian Public Service Commission. Under the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth), use or disclosure of personal information that is within the primary purpose for which the information was collected is permitted. Part B of the Australian Public Service Commission Privacy Policy describes the purposes for which employment data is collected. This includes inviting employees to take part in research. Personal data provided to ORIMA Research will comply with the government’s privacy and secure data management obligations.
What you will be asked
The survey itself will step you through the relevant content and in-scope ways you may use it. No assumed knowledge or additional material is required to complete the survey. You will be asked to estimate your use of copyright material (text and images only) for general work purposes in the previous 24 hours. The survey will also include general questions about your use of copyright material with AI tools – for example in a prompt, in training an AI tool, or in compiling a dataset for use in training an AI tool.
For the purposes of the survey, copyright material includes the copying of text and images of literary, dramatic, artistic and musical works through printing, downloading, saving and sharing internally for work purposes. For example, this could include copying a photo or a diagram and sending it to an internal colleague via email, or downloading and saving a journal article for inclusion in an internal report.
The use of copyright materials for personal use does not need to be captured.
Confidentiality
Your response is confidential to ORIMA Research and won’t be linked back to you in any way. Results will be de-identified in the survey report which is for internal purposes and won’t be published.
Find out more
For technical help with the survey you can contact ORIMA Research on 1800 806 950 or surveys@orima.com.
For general copyright or survey questions, you can also contact us at copyright@ag.gov.au.