Contributed Content Terms of Use

These are the Contributed Content Terms of Use for the DigitalNZ site. Contributed Content includes text added to DigitalNZ stories, comments contributed via Facebook to individual items, and uploaded images and their associated metadata.

The quick read

If you add content to DigitalNZ’s website you must be the copyright holder of this content or have the permission of the copyright holder.
You must also grant the National Library the right to use the content in certain ways.
The material you upload to DigitalNZ must not be offensive or obscene or be in breach of these or any other applicable terms of use.
The National Library has the right to remove images or text from DigitalNZ at any time, but we aim to kōrero with the person responsible for the upload when determining what action to take.

These terms are between the National Library (‘we’, ‘us’, or ‘our’) and users of the DigitalNZ website (‘you’, ‘your’, or ‘user’).

These terms should be read in conjunction with the DigitalNZ General Terms of Use, and any other terms applicable to your use of the DigitalNZ website.

Your right to upload Contributed Content

As a DigitalNZ user you may submit information to DigitalNZ for others to view and use (‘Contributed Content’). Contributed Content includes text contributed to DigitalNZ stories (such as headings, paragraph text, and captions), comments contributed via Facebook to individual items, and uploaded images and their associated metadata.

To submit Contributed Content, you must be the copyright holder of the content or have the permission of the copyright holder. Any Contributed Content you submit must not:

be in breach of these or any other applicable terms of use
infringe any intellectual property or privacy rights
breach any suppression order or any other law
contain images of Taonga Māori (cultural treasures) that are restricted for cultural reasons, or
cause any hurt or harm.

You must also understand that by submitting Contributed Content you will be granting the National Library rights to use to the Contributed Content in accordance with the terms below.

Right to remove Contributed Content, accounts, or features

The National Library has the right to remove any Contributed Content as it sees fit and will do so if content violates these terms of use. In addition to any other rights available to the National Library by law, your account can be suspended or deleted if you violate these terms of use.

The National Library has the right to modify or remove user contribution features at its discretion and to change the licence choices available for Contributed Content at any time.

Wherever possible we will notify you of any changes.

Rights you grant the National Library

In uploading your Contributed Content to DigitalNZ you agree to make it available via various licences and rights statements, which are determined by media type. The definitions and terms of these are outlined below.

Types of Contributed Content

Text content

‘Text Content’ is all words contributed by users to DigitalNZ stories. These are headings, paragraph text, tags, captions, image annotations, and comments contributed via the Facebook plugin.

In contributing Text Content the user agrees to licence the Text Content under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Licence (CC BY 4.0).

Please note that comments can only be added via a Facebook plugin. To add a comment, you will need to have and be signed in to a Facebook account. To do this you need to abide by Facebook’s terms of use of use which, among other things:

prohibits access to those under 13 years of age
restricts what content you can upload in ways different to these terms of use, and
requires you to grant Facebook a broad licence over your content.

Facebook is now part of the Meta company. We suggest you read Meta’s Terms of Service to understand more about these terms.

Metadata content

‘Metadata Content” is all the descriptive text associated with an image uploaded to DigitalNZ ‘stories”. This is an image’s title, description, subject tags, the creator's name, the date it was created, and the caption.

In contributing Metadata Content the user agrees to licence the Metadata Content under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Licence (CC BY 4.0).

Image content

‘Image Content’ is all images uploaded by users of DigitalNZ ‘stories’, including images created by the user and images sourced from any third party.

When a user uploads Image Content to the website, the user must specify which of the following rights statements applies for that Image Content:

Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Licence (CC BY 4.0): The Image Content can be copied, redistributed and adapted by anyone, as long as they attribute the creator.
No known copyright: To the best of the User’s knowledge, the Image Content attracts no copyright and may be copied or otherwise used in New Zealand.

DigitalNZ wants to reduce, as much as possible, the risk of infringing on the copyright of any person. To do that you must investigate the copyright status of the Image Content to the best of your ability before specifying what rights statement applies to that Image Content.

It is the responsibility of the user to apply the correct rights statements for their Image Content. Where the user is not the copyright owner for Image Content, the user must identify the relevant copyright owner and the licence terms upon which the Image Content is permitted to be used.

The National Library is not liable for the incorrect application of these rights statements. If the National Library becomes aware that the publication of any Image Content on the website (or that use of the Image Content in accordance with the rights statement applied by the user to the Image Content) may infringe the intellectual property rights of any person, the National Library will as soon as practicable delete the Image Content and prevent access to it.

How DigitalNZ moderates personal images and texts

Register of updates to these terms

On 26 May 2022 we updated these terms of use to reflect that Facebook, including the plugin comment tool we use on the website, is now part of the Meta company.