Are old school logos under copyright?
<p>I wanted to use a school logo on my website. This is an <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sydney_Grammar_School#/media/File:Sydney_Grammar_School_Logo.png" rel="nofollow noreferrer">example of one</a> (which is a private school) and <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:North_Sydney_Girls_High_logo.jpg" rel="nofollow noreferrer">here is another</a> (a public school).</p>
<p>Wikipedia says that they are both no longer in copyright. But when on the government <a href="https://education.nsw.gov.au/about-us/copyright" rel="nofollow noreferrer">website</a>, it says this about the copyright:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Material on this website not available under a Creative Commons
licence includes:</p>
<ul>
<li>the Department of Education logo, other logos and trademark-protected material</li>
</ul>
</blockquote>
<p>Is this statement the Department of Education made true? It seems to me that the copyright has indeed expired. Is the Department of Education just making a blanket statement that may not be true if the logo is very old?</p>

<p>I can see two points you might be confused about in your question.</p>
<h3>1. Works can be in the public domain without having a CC license</h3>
<p>The Wikipedia statement and the government statement are not inconsistent with each other;  just because something isn't available under a Creative Commons license doesn't necessarily mean that it is restricted by copyright.  In fact, <a href="https://wiki.creativecommons.org/wiki/public_domain" rel="nofollow noreferrer">CC licenses are moot for material in the public domain:</a></p>
<blockquote>
<p>When a work is in the public domain, it is free for use by anyone for any purpose without restriction under copyright law. Public domain is the purest form of open/free, since no one owns or controls the material in any way. ... Creative Commons licenses do not affect the status of a work that is in the public domain under applicable law, because our licenses only apply to works that are protected by copyright.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>So if a work is in the public domain, you can use it for whatever purpose you wish (though see below), without restriction or attribution.  This is less restrictive than the various Creative Commons licenses, which require various levels of attribution, non-modification, etc. depending on the license chosen by the creator.</p>
<h3>2. Trademark protections are separate from copyright protections</h3>
<p>Your quote from the government website implies that these logos might be trademarked, even if they're not under copyright;  this is entirely possible.  Roughly speaking, trademark protections keep other people from trading on your good name &amp; reputation; copyright protections keep other people from directly profiting from your creative endeavors.</p>
<p>If another party creates a product that uses a trademark in a way that would create confusion among consumers, the trademark holder can sue for that.  Depending on how you use the logos, you might run afoul of these protections.  See <a href="https://law.stackexchange.com/questions/74218/">this Q&amp;A for futher details under US law.</a> (Australian law may differ a bit but I would expect that the general principles are the same.)</p>

copyright australia