Commons:Copyright rules by territory/New Zealand

New Zealand has been a member of the Berne Convention since 24 April 1928 and the World Trade Organization since 1 January 1995, as well as a signatory to various other international treaties.^[1]

As of 2018 the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), an agency of the United Nations, listed various acts including the Copyright Act 1994 (reprint as at 1 March 2017) as the main IP laws enacted by the legislature of New Zealand.^[1] WIPO holds the text of the 1994 act in their WIPO Lex database.^[2] The New Zealand Legislation holds a copy of the 1994 Act as of 30 December 2018, with a warning that some amendments have not yet been incorporated.^[3]

The Copyright Act 1962 of New Zealand may apply on the Cook Islands and Niue, two self-governing states in free association with New Zealand.^[4]

Under the New Zealand Copyright Act of 1994 as of 30 December 2018,

• Subject to the following provisions of this section, copyright in a literary, dramatic, musical, or artistic work expires at the end of the period of 50 years from the end of the calendar year in which the author dies.^{[1994-2018 Sec.22(1)]}
• If the work is computer-generated, copyright expires at the end of the period of 50 years from the end of the calendar year in which the work is made.^{[1994-2018 Sec.22(2)]}
• If the work is of unknown authorship, copyright expires at the end of the period of 50 years from the end of the calendar year in which it is first made available to the public by an authorised act.^{[1994-2018 Sec.22(3)]}
• In relation to a work of joint authorship, the reference in subsection (1) to the death of the author shall be construed ... as a reference to the death of the last of the authors whose identity is known.^{[1994-2018 Sec.22(6)]}
• Copyright in a sound recording or film expires (a) at the end of the period of 50 years from the end of the calendar year in which the work is made; or (b) if it is made available to the public by an authorised act before the end of that period, 50 years from the end of the calendar year in which it is so made available.^{[1994-2018 Sec.23(1)]}
• Copyright in a communication work expires at the end of the period of 50 years from the end of the calendar year in which the communication work is first communicated to the public.^{[1994-2018 Sec.24(1)]}
• Copyright in a typographical arrangement of a published edition expires at the end of the period of 25 years from the end of the calendar year in which the edition is first published.^{[1994-2018 Sec.25]}

See also: Commons:Government works

Under the New Zealand Copyright Act of 1994 as of 30 December 2018,

• Where a work is made by a person employed or engaged by the Crown ... the Crown is the first owner of any copyright in the work.^{[1994-2018 Sec.26(1)]}
• Crown copyright shall expire ... at the end of the period of 100 years from the end of the calendar year in which the work is made.^{[1994-2018 Sec.26(3b)]}
• Some government publications are not subject to copyright, including bills, acts, regulations, court judgments, royal commission and select committee reports, etc.^{[1994-2018 Sec.27]}

See also: Commons:Copyright tags

• {{PD-New Zealand}} – copyright has expired or it is not subject to copyright
• {{NZTA-Sign-Spec}} – for traffic signs used by the NZ Transport Agency (NZTA)

See also: Commons:Currency

  Not OK New Zealand coins and notes are copyrighted by the Reserve Bank of New Zealand. They note that "the Reserve Bank has no objection to reproducing our notes and coins as complete on-screen or printed images, typically for design, educational or illustrative purposes" but that "for intellectual property reasons we cannot grant permission to reproduce detail parts of these designs, and in particular that: (1) The ‘Pukaki’ image on the 20 cent coin is owned by Ngati Whakaue, used with permission by the Reserve Bank; (2) The image of H.M. The Queen on the obverse of our coins is owned by The Crown." This amounts to a restriction on derivative works, making the designs not appropriate for Commons.

The Reserve Bank of New Zealand provides guidelines on using images of currency.^[5]

See also: Commons:Freedom of panorama

  OK for 3D works {{FoP-New Zealand}}

  OK for 2D "works of artistic craftsmanship" {{FoP-New Zealand}}

  Not OK for 2D "graphic works". For image files such works, please file deletion requests and tag the resulting case pages with <noinclude>[[Category:New Zealand FOP cases/pending]]</noinclude>.

Under the Copyright Act 1994 as of December 2018, Section 73,

• This section applies to the following works: (a) buildings (b) works (being sculptures, models for buildings, or works of artistic craftsmanship) that are permanently situated in a public place or in premises open to the public.^{[1994-2018 Sec.73(1)]}
• Copyright in a work to which this section applies is not infringed by (a) copying the work by making a graphic work representing it; or (b) copying the work by making a photograph or film of it; or (c) communicating to the public a visual image of the work.^{[1994-2018 Sec.73(21)]}
• Copyright is not infringed by the issue to the public of copies, or the communication to the public, of anything the making of which was, under this section, not an infringement of copyright.^{[1994-2018 Sec.73(3)]}

Copyright legislation in New Zealand also follows that of the United Kingdom. In the absence of any specific case law to the contrary it is reasonable to assume that the rules will be identical. See Commons:Copyright rules by territory/United Kingdom for more details.

Murals by Xoë Hall

• Artist Xoë Hall outraged over work featured on calendar's cover (by Charlotte Cook of Radio New Zealand, 30 December 2019)
• Yes, street art is on public display - but that doesn’t mean we should share it without credit (by Mike Dickison and Bruce White of Stuff.co.nz, 10 July 2020)

See also: Commons:Stamps

In New Zealand, the Crown Copyright is defined by Sections 2(1), 26 et 27 of the 1994 Copyright Act. It lasts 100 years, with exceptions. It protects the work created by a person employed or engaged by the Crown, Ministers of the Crown, offices of Parliament and government departments. See Wikipedia:Crown copyright.

According to this law, images of New Zealand stamps are in the public domain :

• 50 years after issue for stamps issued before 31 December 1944 (Template:PD-NZ-50-years on the Wikipedia in English). Use {{PD-NZ-50-years}}. All stamps from 1944 and before are thus in the Public Domain.
• 100 years after issue for stamps issued between 1 January 1945 and the 31 March 1987 by the New Zealand Post Office as a Department of the Government. No stamps from 1945 onward will therefore become public domain before 1 January 2045.

See also: Commons:Threshold of originality

As stated in the New Zealand government's NZGOAL copyright guide (January 2015),

• As the Court of Appeal has stated, the “threshold test for originality is not high”, the determining factor being “whether sufficient time, skill, labour, or judgment has been expended in producing the work”. The Court has also reiterated the axiom, or principle, that copyright is not concerned with the originality of ideas but with the form of their expression. A work is not original, however, if (a) it is, or to the extent that it is, a copy of another work; or (b) it infringes the copyright in, or to the extent that it infringes the copyright in, another work.^[6]

• New Zealand / Aotearoa
• Category:License tags of New Zealand
• Category:Postage stamps of New Zealand
• Commons:Copyright rules by territory/Cook Islands
• Commons:Copyright rules by territory/Niue
• Commons:Copyright rules by territory/Tokelau
• Commons:Copyright rules by territory/United Kingdom
• Category:New Zealand FOP cases