Agency to police copyright

A new agency has been set up to police the copying of newspaper material.

The Print Media Copyright Agency (PMCA) will charge fees for the commercial right to copy articles, allowing organisations to legitimately use material from all New Zealand daily newspapers and a wide variety of print media titles.

The move brings New Zealand newspapers in line with their overseas counterparts, and also with the music and book publishing industries, which have collected copyright and licence fees for years.

"Organisations in the corporate and Government sector have widely copied intellectual property from newspapers. With the launch of the PMCA, they now have an efficient, cost-effective way to ensure their copying does not infringe the rights of publishers that are enshrined in the Copyright Act," Lincoln Gould, chief executive of the Newspaper Publishers' Association, said.

"We believe most organisations will accept that the introduction of the PMCA is a long overdue correction of a grey area regarding the use and dissemination of newspaper and magazine articles."

The PMCA licences will be active from this week.

Fees will be based on the number of people employed in an organisation. Full details are available at the PMCA website.

- NZPA

Print Media Copyright Agency