WeCreate, the alliance of New Zealand’s creative industries, has welcomed MBIE’s release of an Issues Paper on Copyright in New Zealand. The Intellectual Property Team at MBIE have conducted extensive engagement with stakeholders that have an interest in copyright and the paper is informed by this engagement.

New Zealand’s creative people and creative businesses generate high-value, environmentally friendly, often-digital products and services that are at the forefront of innovation, spearhead new technology and will underpin many future occupations that will enhance the prosperity and wellbeing of all New Zealanders.

Chair of WeCreate, Paula Browning, said, ”Future-proofing our copyright law to ensure our content creators and our creative businesses are the ones who derive value from their work, is essential for New Zealand’s future. Our future wellbeing will rely on nurturing a thriving creative environment that’s fit for the digital age, and where growing the contribution and competitiveness of our creative industries, as other highly developed creative economies are doing, is prioritised.

We applaud Minister Faafoi and the team at MBIE for taking this first step to review our copyright law. The terms of reference call for a copyright system that is effective and efficient, including providing clarity and certainty, facilitating competitive markets, minimising transaction costs, and maintaining integrity and respect for the law and WeCreate supports this approach.”

WeCreate’s submission to the work that has been done so far is based on four principles:

• safeguarding the right of New Zealand creators to choose how they earn from their work;
• continuing to ensure that our digital world provides consumers with plentiful access to the abundant content that is now available;
• providing clarity and certainty for the authorised use of copyright works and accessible and effective mechanisms for addressing unauthorised use;
• embracing and anticipating technological and market developments to ensure New Zealand creators can continue to compete effectively in a global digital marketplace.

“We believe this review should be about access, and about the value of our creative people and businesses in building innovation for the future social and economic prosperity of our country. Our members look forward to partnering with government in an economic development strategy that will deliver growth from our creative sector for the good of all New Zealanders.”

Note: The New Zealand Society of Authors is a member of WeCreate.