Copyright applies to published material including books, journals, newspapers, magazines, art and music – even when the copyright symbol © is not displayed.
Generally, if your copying falls outside of the guidelines, you need to gain advanced permission from the Rightsholder to copy and share their material.
General public
You can make one copy from an original when:
- it is for your own, personal research or private study
- you have written permission from the Rightsholder
Educators
For lesson planning, teachers and educators are permitted to:
- make one full copy of an original
- make multiple copies from an original of up to 3% or three pages (whichever is greater). The section copied must not giveaway significant information ie. chapter summaries.
If you intend to copy more than what is permitted under the act you have two options: Gain advanced permission from the Rightsholder which can be time-consuming and costly, or choose to get a copyright licence from Copyright Licensing New Zealand which is the smart choice. Find out about our different types of licences.
Works excluded from our licences
Our various licences enable organisations that have licensed with us to copy and share much more than is available under the Copyright Act. But there are exclusions to what can be copied, so make sure you refer to the Copyright Act when copying:
- Material downloaded from the internet
- Printed music (including lyrics and sheet music)
- Loose maps and charts
- Unpublished religious orders of service
- House journals and other free publications primarily for employees of commercial businesses, industrial undertakings or public services
- Illustrations and/or photographs that do not come within the provisions of the licence
- Privately owned documents issued for tuition purposes and limited to clientele who pay fees
- Theses, dissertations and student papers
- Workbooks – publications designed to guide the work of a student, support classroom work, internal assessment and end-of-year revision
- The copying of an entire play - education institutions that wish to copy entire New Zealand plays, need to licence this through Playmarket.
SPECIFIC EXCLUDED WORKS
From time to time, copyright owners request that their works are to be excluded from our licensing schemes. If you are wanting to copy or share any material listed (that is beyond what is allowed under the Copyright Act), you will need to gain advanced permission from them directly. You can view the current list of specific Excluded Works here >> (pdf). Updated 31 August 2023.
