With a Screenrights licence, educational institutions in New Zealand can copy any program broadcast on TV or radio to use for educational purposes in the classroom (including remote learning).
A Screenrights licence allows schools, universities and polytechnics, colleges and wānanga to record from television and radio, in exchange for the payment of an annual fee. The licence also includes copying audiovisual material from the internet.
Screenrights distributes all money it collects to the producers, writers and other rightsholders in recorded programs, after deducting its administrative overheads only.
The Screenrights licence has been established under provisions in the New Zealand Copyright Act that provide educators with access to an important educational resources while ensuring payment to the relevant rightsholders who make the programmes teachers and academics want to use.
Do we have a Screenrights licence?
All New Zealand universities are licensed. If you work at a school, polytechnic, college or wānanga, you can find out if you are licensed by contacting us.
What does the licence let me do?
The Screenrights licence is versatile and flexible. You can copy:
- Any program – including movies, documentaries, Maori language programs, news and current affairs
- Anywhere – make copies at home or in your library
- From any channel – pay or free to air
- Audiovisual material legally available online — download podcasts, vodcasts or programs from the internet (for universities, wanting to download radio programs from the internet, please note there are some limitations. Ask your copyright officer for advice.)
- In any format – copy onto VHS, DVD or a hard drive
- To use in teaching or to keep in the library as a resource
Access huge, cloud based libraries of recordings
A Screenrights licence also allows licensed schools and universities store, access and play recordings using the latest digital technologies, such as eTV and Clickview. These services complement the Screenrights licence by providing access to online repositories of tens of thousands of copied programs that you can stream for educational purposes in the classroom, or at home.
Copying without a Screenrights licence
Under the New Zealand Copyright Act, educational institutions without a Screenrights licence may infringing copyright if they copy or communicate any programmes without being covered by the agreement. Failure to get a Screenrights licence means that you will miss out on a comprehensive right to copy programs from television, radio and the internet.