Guide to the Copyright Standard

Overview

Subject to inclusion of the minimum requirements of the Copyright Standard, agencies can modify or supplement their own copyright statements as required.

Crown entities and State Owned Enterprises should note that they are not part of the “Crown” in its legal sense and are expressly excluded from the definition of “Crown” in the Copyright Act. As such, while they do own “copyright” in their original works, it is not “Crown copyright”. Accordingly, they should not use the phrase “Crown copyright” in their copyright statements.

Rationale

Consistent with the Policy Framework for New Zealand Government-held Information, agencies are encouraged to:

• make information available easily, widely and equitably to the people of New Zealand (except where reasons preclude such availability as specified in legislation); and
• where wide dissemination is desirable, permit use of material in which they own the copyright, subject to acknowledgement of source.

Please note that the State Services Commission is currently undertaking an Open Government Information and Data Re-use Project which entails consideration of whether Creative Commons licences should be adopted for governmental use. This Standard is expected to be further amended once a decision on that issue has been made.

Example

Example: [Crown] copyright

Unless otherwise indicated, the material available on this website is protected by [Crown] copyright. You can reproduce this [Crown] copyright material free of charge without further permission, as long as you:

• reproduce the material accurately
• do not use the material in a derogatory manner or a misleading context, and
• acknowledge the source and copyright status of the material.