Enabling use and reuse

This enabling use and reuse guide helps museums, libraries, archives, and other organisations in Aotearoa New Zealand to manage the copyright of digitised collections.

What is copyright?

Digital content is made to be copied, distributed, and adapted. Having a basic understanding of your copyright obligations and how they might apply to your digitised collections will allow you to confidently share collections.

Copyright is a legal right under the New Zealand Copyright Act 1994 that gives creators (or a group of creators) control over an original work they have created. Copyright exists to encourage the creation of new creative works, potentially providing an income through fees or royalties for the use of a work.

New Zealand Copyright Act 1994

A creator doesn't need to apply for copyright — it is granted automatically on the creation of a new work. Protected works do not need a copyright symbol or statement to gain protection.

How long does copyright last?

In New Zealand, the copyright term for most works is for 50 years after the death of the creator. However, different types of copyright-protected material have different copyright durations, for example all works made by the Crown in 1945 and later, will not begin to expire until 2046.

What is the Public Domain?

Apart from a few exceptions, once copyright expires, a work enters the Public Domain and it can be used for any purpose — even commercial use. Permission to copy, adapt, or distribute a work is no longer needed from the former copyright owner.

This means works in the Public Domain can be digitised, adapted, and republished for anyone to access, use, and share.

The DigitalNZ guide, ‘Copyright terms and the Public Domain in New Zealand’, is a reference for anyone wanting to know what works are out of copyright as of 1 January each year. Use it to assist you to develop your own policies for identifying the copyright status of works in your collection.

Download Copyright terms and the Public Domain in New Zealand (PDF/252 KB)

What type of material is protected?

Copyright does not cover ideas, facts, or data. It only protects tangible, fixed expressions of a work — either physical or digital — including:

photographs eg. digital files, physical photographic prints, negatives, and scans
literary works eg. published books, manuscripts, magazines, pamphlets, newspapers, newsletters, online blogs or articles
dramatic works eg. works of dance or mime and film scenarios or scripts
musical works eg. musical scores and arrangements
artistic works eg. graphic works, drawings, paintings, sculptures, postcards, sculptures, collages, models, embroidery, tapestry, needlework and other crafts, as well as handmade ceramics, handmade jewellery, and crafted furniture
sound recordings eg. a recording of music in a physical or digital form (cassette tapes, CDs, digital files)
films eg. a recording of moving image captured in a physical or digital form (video tapes, CDs, digital video files, film negatives)
communication works eg. any wireless broadcast, cable transmission, or internet streaming of sounds and visual images for reception by the public
typographical arrangement eg. the published edition of a literary, dramatic or musical work
Crown works eg. works made by a person employed or engaged by the Crown
Parliamentary works eg. Bills, legislation, reports, Hansard debates, and inquiries.

Refer to the guide ‘Copyright terms and the public domain in New Zealand’ for more detail.

Are there any exceptions to copyright?

Most copyright laws have exceptions that allow copyright or use of a work for specific purposes.

Fair dealing

The Copyright Act also allows archives and libraries to make digital copies without permission from the copyright holder as long as they meet these four criteria:

The original item is at risk of loss, damage, or destruction.
The digital copy replaces the original item.
The original item is not accessible by members of the public after replacement by the digital copy except for purposes of research, the nature of which requires or may benefit from access to the original item.
It is not reasonably practicable to purchase a copy of the original item.

This allows many at risk, out-of-publication works to be digitised and made available to the public. Other exceptions that allow the fair dealing of a work include making a copy for private research, study, criticism, review, or news reporting.

Fact sheet: Fair dealing in New Zealand

Other usage rights

the Designs Act 1953
the Privacy Act 1993
the Films, Videos, and Publications Classification Act 1993
or the Trade Marks Act 2002.

There may also be customary, cultural, or human rights that are protected by common law, treaty, or international undertakings by the government on behalf of New Zealand.

Cultural considerations

Digital content that depicts people, objects, and subjects can have significant cultural importance to Māori, Pacific, and other communities. It is important to seek further consultation and permission from the creator/s or originating iwi, hapū or whānau before copying and distributing this content, alongside the copyright status.

How do I determine the copyright status of a work?

Before you set about digitising your content and making it available online, you need to clear the rights in that content. Here are six steps to help you through that process.

1) Determine the content type

Determining the type of work, for example ‘film’ or ‘photograph’, is important because each type of copyright-protected material has a different copyright duration.

Some works can incorporate multiple layers of copyright with multiple copyright owners. For example, a book includes the author’s manuscript (a literary work), and the layout, typesetting, and design of the book (a published edition). And if the book includes photographs or illustrations, each will be protected separately.

2) Identify the creator

There is no official record of copyright ownership in New Zealand. Copyright is often poorly documented which can lead to some tricky logistical problems when you're trying to track down who might own the copyright to a particular work.

In many cases the creator will be explicitly named in the work. If it isn’t, some information can be identified from context, such as the date, location, or whether the material is stored with other content of known origin. If the creator is not from New Zealand, be aware that the copyright term may be different.

3) Identify when it was created

Although knowing the specific year of creation is ideal, even narrowing it to a decade or quarter-century can be useful. There are various techniques available for dating that are focused mainly on the subject matter or the physical medium. If the creator is known, there may be information about when they were making this kind of content. Film and tape stock brands, bindings and paper stock, ink and paint colours, and even markings or designs of the containers or frames are useful physical indicators. Knowing when the material was created will help you determine whether it is still in copyright, or has entered the Public Domain.

4) Identify whether it has been published

Identify whether the work has ever been published or exhibited in public and, if so, in which year. Unpublished material may have different protections from published material. As with finding the creator, if this information is not immediately obvious then the context and history of the material can offer clues. Research may be needed to find references such as reviews, advertisements, or commentary.

5) Identify the publisher

If the work has been published, knowing the publisher and whether the creator was likely to have been employed by them will be important. In many cases an employer automatically acquires copyright, and this includes government departments and other agencies of the Crown. However, novelists, journalists, academics, film producers, musicians and others often retain the copyright or license the rights for a fixed time or purpose.

6) Establish the copyright status, then apply the rights statement for each item

Once you have gathered as much information as possible, you are in a good position to establish copyright or Public Domain status, and determine whether other legal protections such as privacy affect the content. The DigitalNZ guide, ‘NZ copyright status flowchart for photographs’ can help you to determine the copyright status of photographs in your collection.

It is likely that you will be able to identify works as being one of the following:

out of copyright and therefore in the Public Domain
still in copyright, and the rights-holder is known
still in copyright, and the rights-holder is unknown
or unknown copyright.

Copyright status	Possible rights statements
Out of copyright and therefore in the Public Domain	The disclaimer ‘no known copyright restrictions’ is the most common approach to out-of-copyright material. If you want to go into more detail, the New Zealand Government suggests the following disclaimer for use by publicly funded institutions: “To the best of the knowledge of ‘name of agency’, under New Zealand law: there is no copyright or other intellectual property rights in this ‘identify material in question’ in New Zealand; and it may be copied and otherwise re-used in New Zealand without copyright or other intellectual property right related restriction.”
Still in copyright, and the rights-holder is known	Consider approaching the copyright holder for permission to copy. They may consider applying a Creative Commons licence. There are six different Creative Commons licences to choose from that have varying usage rights. Refer to Creative Commons About CC Licences
Still in copyright, and the rights-holder is unknown (orphan works)	Consider using an All rights reserved statement until the rights-holder is identified or a reasonably diligent search to find and locate the copyright owner can be conducted. Refer to the National and State Libraries Australasia Position statement: Reasonably diligent search for orphan works
Unknown copyright	Consider using an All rights reserved statement until the rights-holder is identified or the work can be assumed to be out of copyright.

Disclaimer: We believe the information in this guide on this page is accurate, but it does not constitute legal advice and DigitalNZ is not responsible for loss or damage caused as a result of following it.