Copyright is a legal means of recognising a creator’s rights over their original work. In general, in New Zealand copyright applies automatically from the date a work is created. Copyright owners can licence others to use their copyrighted material or sell their copyright to someone else. Papers Past contains digitised content that has different copyright restrictions. You need to check the copyright status before you reuse the content.
Where the creator (author, photographer, etc) can be identified, the copyright term lasts for 50 years after the death of the creator. For works that are still in copyright, permission from the copyright holder is needed before copying or republishing the works, unless you’re using it for something like research or private study, which is exempt under the Copyright Act. In New Zealand, if an author cannot be identified by a reasonable inquiry, then copyright expires 50 years after the end of the calendar year that the work was first made available to the public.
Crown copyright applies for 100 years from the end of the calendar year in which the work is made. However, material under Crown copyright that was made before 1 January 1945 is out of copyright. Crown works made in 1945 will not come out of copyright until 2046.
Some material is not eligible for copyright under New Zealand legislation. For example, no copyright was ever applied to Government bills, parliamentary debates and reports of select committees.
On Papers Past you will find digitised content with different copyright restrictions. We do not own the copyright in the digitised content on Papers Past. The copyright of content created by third parties is owned by them. Information about copyright relating to specific publications can be found on each publication’s home page as well as next to the article. You need to check the copyright status before you reuse the content.
As a guide for newspaper content, it may be reasonable to assume copyright has expired for items published more than 120 years ago, and that they can therefore be copied and republished without permission.
Content on this website (other than digitised content) is Crown copyright managed by the National Library of New Zealand Te Puna Mātauranga o Aotearoa. All use of information from this website must be acknowledged appropriately, and permission must be sought before copying any images, programs, and so on from the website.
Reusing digitised content from Papers Past depends on both the copyright status of the material and what you want to use it for. If you want to copy (including download), adapt, publish or otherwise distribute any of the digitised content on Papers Past you are responsible for determining the copyright status of that content, obtaining any necessary permissions and meeting any other requirements.
If copyright in a work has expired, you may reuse it for whatever you want. There may be other things such as cultural and ethical considerations to take into account before you reuse a work, particularly for Māori content.
If a work is still in copyright, the copyright holder can license it. Licences may have various conditions attached to them and so long as your reuse abides by those conditions you can reuse it. Some copyright owners have used a Creative Commons licence to make their material available on Papers Past. You can find a link to the conditions of such licences in the copyright statement that appears next to the digitised content.
If the rights holder has not licensed the material for wider use (often shown by the statement “All rights reserved”) you need to contact the copyright holder for permission before reusing it. In many instances the first place to go will be the publisher. There is some useful advice on how to go about locating a copyright holder at the New Zealand Intellectual Property Office.
There are some types of reuse that have exemptions under the Copyright Act. These include fair dealing for the purpose of:
There are also some specific exemptions for educational purposes, and for libraries and archives. This means if you are using in-copyright material for one of these reasons, you can do so without needing to get permission.
New Zealand Copyright Act 1994
Although material may be out of copyright under New Zealand legislation, there may still be cultural and ethical considerations that should be taken into account before reusing Māori material. You can find out more about the Library’s principles around the care of Māori material in Te mauri o te mātauranga: purihia, tiakina! Principles for the care and preservation of Māori materials
Material on Papers Past may include other forms of intellectual property such as trademarks. You can find out more about the different types of intellectual property at the New Zealand Intellectual Property Office
If you copy or reuse digitised content from this website that is out of copyright or for which you have gained permission from the copyright holder, we ask that you acknowledge the National Library of New Zealand as the source of the information. If the material is republished online, we would appreciate a link to where you found the information on Papers Past.
You can find a permanent link and the details to cite by clicking on the “Research Info” tab above any article.
If you are a rights holder and are concerned that you have found in-copyright material on our website, for which you have not given permission, or is not covered by a limitation or exception in New Zealand law, you can make a takedown request.
This copyright statement does not constitute legal advice, and the National Library of New Zealand is not responsible for any loss or damage caused as a result of following it.