APA, ASA make agreement with schools for virtual storytime

Teachers are able to continue to read stories to students learning from school or at home during the Covid-19 outbreak, following an industry arrangement for school storytimes.

For the duration of the pandemic, virtual storytimes will be sanctioned by the industry under an agreement made by the Australian Publishers Association (APA), the Australian Society of Authors (ASA) and the National Copyright Unit (NCU) for Australian schools.

While the Copyright Act enables teachers to read stories to students in schools, the boards of the APA and ASA have asked their members to suspend any requirements for copyright permission to be sought to allow schools to make recordings and livestream storytimes.

The APA and ASA will allow schools to read Australian children’s books online to students and families without specific permission or payment, with schools encouraged to livestream storytimes. A teacher may make a recording available provided the recording is, where possible, password protected and ‘view only’, so that no further copies can be made or downloaded.

Teachers must also provide bibliographic details of the featured book at the beginning of any published storytime recording, including the title, author, illustrator and publisher.

The agreement follows a similar arrangement for digital library storytimes. For more information, see the Books Create website.

Category: Junior Local news