Every day people make copies of printed material for many reasons: education, research, information and business. Often, they do so without approval of the owner of the works being copied. That's where we come in.
Unauthorised copying deprives authors and publishers of valuable income and reduces their incentive to create new material, and places users in non-compliance with the law. People who want to copy from copyright material often find it difficult to identify and/or locate Rightsholders, and often approval is required from more than one Rightsholder.
Simple, efficient copyright with Copyright Licensing New Zealand
People who want to copy from copyright material have to decide whether to seek permission, decline to use the work, or to copy anyway, possibly infringing copyright. It can be a frustrating process for both the Rightsholder and the user of copyright material. That's where we can help.
The Copyright Act 1994 balances the competing public interests of community access to copyright works with the right of creators to earn a living from their works. The Act allows educational institutions to make multiple copies of up to 3% or three pages of a work for educational purposes. Individuals who wish to make single copies for private study or research may do so under the “fair dealing” provisions in the Act. However, the requirements of major users of copyright material – education, government and business – tend to fall outside of the Act, which is where we come in.
A copyright licence provides users with advanced permission to copy from copyright material, far beyond what is permitted by the Act. Read more about the types of licences we provide here.
The benefits of working with us
As a rightsholder, when you sign a Rights Agreement with Copyright Licensing New Zealand, you formally authorise us to include your published works in our licensing schemes. There are major advantages in signing an agreement. By doing so you are outsourcing to us the time-consuming administrative overhead cost required to monetise your rights. Other benefits include:
- Simple, easy to use MyCopyright service
- There are no costs involved, no joining fee or ongoing costs
- We provide centralised licensing where it would be impractical for you to do it yourself
- We facilitate the representation of your works by overseas RROs
- Our access to international RROs enables you to receive distributions from them
- Free high-quality copyright Knowledge Base module for authors and publishers, written by expert copyright lawyers
You do not lose control of your rights by entering into an agreement. The agreement is non-exclusive which means you are still free to negotiate directly with copyright users. This may occur if someone wanted to use your work for commercial purposes (for example) in a way that is not covered by a copyright licence.
MyCopyright makes it easy
MyCopyright is your way of interacting with us efficiently and easily. Through MyCopyright you can:
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View, process and complete new funds distributions
- Add and manage the list of works associated with your organisation
- Update your account details and delegate MyCopyright functions to staff within your organisation
We will provide you with sign in details. If you’re an existing user of MyCopyright and have questions or need support, contact us or download this handy User Guide to get you started.
Photo by Thomas Drouault on Unsplash
