News & Blogs

Sometimes, determining the creator of a work is really difficult, or impossible, even after diligent hunting and searching. These “orphans” have no clear copyright owner, but that doesn’t always mean they’re out of copyright or in the public domain.

Imagine you are a school, or a funeral director, or a church, or a production company, or a café owner – any business that wants to use multiple pieces of copyrighted intellectual property in a year. A CMO, or Collective Management Organisation, exists to make it easy to do this the right way.

In the old days, if you saw your work being used without your permission, or in a derogatory way, you contacted the user and told them off, usually with a strongly worded letter, sometimes through a lawyer. Today, with the internet and all that website jazz, you might need to use something like a DMCA – Digital Millennium Copyright Act notice, aka DMCA takedown notice, or DMCA request.

Short answer – no, Fair Use does not apply in New Zealand. “Fair Use” is an American term with an American application. It’s an often-used legal defence mounted by people accused of infringing on someone else’s copyright.

If someone knowingly signs your name to a work that isn’t yours, and particularly if they gain an income from it, you have the law on your side.

Ok friends, this one is tricky, but not because the law is vague. It’s a common misconception that something in the public space is “public domain” – meaning that just because it’s freely and easily accessible, it’s wide open for anyone to use however they like, but this isn’t true.