National promises to re-cut documentary taken down for copyright

An image from the National Party documentary. Photo / National

The National Party says it is re-editing a campaign ad to avoid breaching copyright laws after a trailer had to be taken down for potential copyright infringement.

On Monday, National uploaded a trailer for a video on the Stuart Nash scandal, which used extensive footage from Newshub’s TV bulletins. Warner Brothers-Discovery, the owners of Newshub, sent a “cease and desist” cautionary letter asking National to take the trailer down.

The full video, which National said it would release at 7pm on Monday, was never uploaded. It is now being re-edited.

National’s campaign chair Chris Bishop said that “all political parties have been using footage from various media outlets on social media for a large number of years.

“I could point you to three or four examples of the Labour Party doing exactly the same thing,” she said.

Bishop said National would “have a discussion with Warner Brothers” about its use of the footage.

In the meantime, the party was recutting the video itself to remove anything that might breach copyright.

“We are re-slicing it to avoid breaching copyright, but the Stuart Nash documentary will be coming,” Bishop said.

Bishop said the reason behind making the documentary in the first place was that the Nash story was “one of these complicated stories where it’s really easy to get lost in the details of it and it’s actually just worth stepping back and explaining to people just exactly how bad the Stuart Nash situation was.

“It’s not a 20-minute Spinoff-style documentary,” Bishop said.

“We certainly haven’t received any taxpayer funding from New Zealand on Air for it,” he said.

Bishop conceded that while National had not received any funding from New Zealand on Air for the documentary, it was funded though National’s Parliamentary Service allocation - and therefore it had received funding from the taxpayer.

“We haven’t had any taxpayer funding from New Zealand on Air, put it that way,” he said.

When asked whether National would be cutting a documentary on disgraced MP Barbara Kuriger, Bishop said he needed to get into his caucus meeting.

Warner Brothers Discovery has been approached for comment.