Hi there. Australia’s copyright laws are set out in the Copyright Act 1968 (Cth) which ensures that people who create new material have a right to protect their work from unauthorised use by third parties.

Copyright law applies to text-based material, including written material published online. The owner of the copyright is usually the person who created the original material, such as the author of a written text or article. The owner of the copyright has a number of exclusive rights over their material, such as the right to reproduce the work and to communicate the work to the public. Anyone who does not own the copyright will generally need permission to use the material in one of these ways, otherwise they will be infringing copyright. Using part of the material without permission may also infringe copyright if it is an important part of the whole work.

News agencies that publish articles on their own websites will generally own the copyright to the written text. This means the news agency is able to control where and on what terms the material is reproduced. Copying or aggregating a substantial amount of this content on another website – either wholly, in part or by paraphrasing – is likely to infringe the copyright of the news agency. The copyright owner would have the right to commence legal action to stop the infringing conduct and/or seek a penalty, such as compensation.

However, there are some situations where republishing copyrighted material is allowed. For example, if the republication is for the purpose of news reporting and the use of the copyrighted material is objectively ‘fair’ in all the circumstances of the case, then an infringement may not arise. Similarly, and specifically in your proposed situation, news articles may be aggregated and republished on another website provided the new website does not introduce the material to a new audience (i.e. users of the aggregate website can also access the original website).

Lastly, most websites have ‘terms of use’ that set out the rules for using the website. It is possible for an aggregator website to display terms that disclaim liability for copyright and any other intellectual property infringement that may arise. However, these disclaimers may not be able to overcome a direct violation of the Copyright Act 1968 (Cth) or similar laws. It is therefore important that the website does not, by design, directly infringe the copyright of others.