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Copyright law protects the expression of ideas, not ideas themselves. Ideas can be protected through common law action for breach of confidence, under the Trade Practices Act,  actions for passing off or misleading or deceptive conduct.

There is no global intellectual property law. In Australia works protected by Copyright must first be published in Australia or be made by an Australian citizen or by a resident of a country that is a member of a relevant copyright treaty.

The author's life plus 50 years is generally the extent of copyright protection for most works and is administered by their legal representative. Copyright cannot be renewed and after this protection period the work becomes part of the Public Domain where anyone can use the material without infringing copyright.

While nobody can prevent users from copying and redistributing copyrighted material once they have had access to it, there are some legal solutions. These include injunction (which seeks to restrain the breach occurring or continuing), damages (which is compensation for infringement) or account of profits (which is to gain payment of the profits to the copyright owner).