Generally, if a person wishes to use material where the copyright belongs to someone else, contact should be made with the owner of the copyright.
Information, and in some cases advice, can be sought from the Australian Copyright Council.
In some areas there are a large number of copyright owners and rather than contacting every owner, associations (called collecting societies) have been formed to collect royalty payments on behalf of their members who own the copyright.
In Australia these associations are:
The Copyright Council has a factsheet "Permission: How to Get It" which is a useful guide on how to locate a copyright owner and request permission.
Certain fair dealings are not infringements of copyright in literary, artistic, musical and dramatic works, for example, fair dealing for the purpose of research or study [s 40, s 103C], for criticism or review [s 41, s. 103A], or the reporting of news [s 42, s 103B].
Fair dealing is the legitimate use or reproduction of part or all of copyrighted material by someone other than the copyright owner, for defined purposes.
The Copyright Act 1968 (Cth) contains many other specific exceptions: for instance, it is not an infringement if temporary reproductions are made as part of the technical process of making or receiving a non-infringing communication [s 43A and s 111A].
No infringement occurs if an artistic work is reproduced on film or television where that reproduction is only incidental to the principal matters represented in the film or broadcast [s 67].
Sculptures and works of artistic craftsmanship in a public place or premises open to the public may be reproduced in a painting, drawing, engraving, photograph or film without infringing copyright, but not if situated there temporarily [s 65]. Note: drawings and paintings are not included, and so this exception does not apply to mural paintings in public places.
There are also defences concerning the making of back-up copies by the owners of non-infringing copies of computer programs and other uses of computer programs for the purposes of making of interoperable productions, error correction or security testing [s 47AB — s 47H].