The Government has moved to extend copyright protection on sound recordings from fifty years to seventy years, a change Arts, Culture and Heritage Minister Paul Goldsmith and Commerce and Consumer Affairs Minister Cameron Brewer say will keep some of the country’s most loved songs earning for the artists who made them.
The announcement, made on Monday during New Zealand Music Month, applies to recordings released after the new law takes effect and to existing recordings that have not already fallen out of copyright. Until now, sound recordings have lost copyright protection fifty years after publication, meaning anyone could release them, sample them, or use them commercially without paying the original artist. From the change date, that window stretches to seventy years, matching Australia, the United Kingdom, the United States and the European Union.
Brewer pointed to a specific anxiety driving the change. Some of the country’s best-known songs from the late nineteen seventies were a handful of years away from losing protection. Split Enz released I See Red in 1978. Dragon recorded April Sun in Cuba in 1977. Hello Sailor put out Gutter Black the same year. Under the old fifty year rule, those recordings would have started losing copyright from 2027. Brewer said the songs are part of the soundtrack of the country, played in homes, at parties, on radio and across the world, and that letting their copyright lapse would mean the artists losing control of work that still earns money.
The change also lifts protection on other creative works to seventy years after the death of the creator, up from fifty. That brings books, paintings, films and other output into line with the international standard. Broadcasts are the one carve out and stay on a fifty year clock.
Goldsmith framed the move as a long overdue tidy up. He said the music industry had been raising the issue for years and that announcing it during Music Month was a deliberate signal that the Government takes the creative sector seriously as an industry rather than a hobby. He linked the announcement to a wider effort to modernise regulation so cultural sectors can grow.
The change is not entirely a choice. It locks in an obligation New Zealand took on under free trade agreements with the United Kingdom and the European Union, both of which required signatories to align their copyright terms with the seventy year standard used in those markets. The deadline written into those agreements is 1 May 2028, so the Government had to legislate the change at some point in this parliamentary term. Doing it now, almost two years ahead of the deadline, gives the music industry certainty that classic recordings will not slip into the public domain in the meantime.
The announcement has been welcomed by music industry bodies that have lobbied for the change for years. Recorded Music NZ and APRA AMCOS, the organisations that collect royalties on behalf of New Zealand artists and songwriters, have argued the shorter term left local performers worse off than their Australian, British and American counterparts when their recordings were licensed for use overseas. Royalties from foreign use of a New Zealand recording can dry up the moment the work loses copyright at home, even if it is still protected in the country where it is being played.
Not everyone is celebrating. Copyright term extensions are controversial among librarians, archivists, educators and open culture advocates, who argue that longer terms reduce the amount of material available for reuse, remix and free access by future generations. The extra twenty years on sound recordings means works recorded as recently as the late nineteen seventies will now stay locked up until the second half of the twenty first century. Critics point out that the extra income from those late life royalties tends to flow to a small number of major rights holders rather than to the broader population of musicians, and that the bulk of the value in any recording is earned in the first decade after release.
The ministers signalled that further changes to the Copyright Act would be announced in coming weeks. That follow up is widely expected to touch on the use of copyrighted material in artificial intelligence training, an area that has become legally fraught as authors, musicians and visual artists challenge the way large model developers have ingested protected work without payment. New Zealand has so far stayed quiet on the question, and the music industry has been pushing the Government to take a position before the next round of free trade negotiations.
For voters, the change sits alongside a broader debate about how the country protects its creative output in a digital and AI driven economy. It also lands in an election year, with the 2026 general election due later this year. Readers wanting to compare where the parties sit on copyright, AI and cultural policy can use the Newswire voting tool to match their own views to party positions.
The Copyright Act amendments will need to pass Parliament before they take effect. The Government has signalled the legislation will be introduced in this session, with select committee consideration to follow, giving artists, archivists, educators and the public a chance to weigh in before the seventy year rule becomes law.
What do you think, should classic recordings be allowed to enter the public domain after fifty years, or is seventy a fairer reward for the artists who made them? Share your view in the comments below.
This article was written by AI, briefed to report the facts, hopefully without some of the bias people bring to the job 🙂
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