\u201cFollowing those investigations, NBR last week secured settlements from two leading fund managers and one national law firm. <\/p>\n
\u201cEach firm paid legal costs and agreed to buy the appropriate number of subscriptions.\u201d<\/p>\n
NBR owners Todd and Jackie Scott.<\/p>\n
The NBR has not named the companies or the precise terms of the settlements, citing confidentiality clauses.<\/p>\n
\u201cA senior representative of one of the companies that settled – clearly not the law firm – told me that the offence is no different than sharing a Netflix account and that everyone does it,\u201d said Scott.<\/p>\n
He said each of the cases would have been taken to court, but that the settlements – led by Couch Harlowe Kovacevich partner Aaron Harlowe as NBR\u2019s legal adviser \u2013 were the most \u201cpragmatic response\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn taking this action, NBR sought to make clear that sharing subscriptions is equivalent to stealing the content our award-winning newsroom brings to our valued member subscribers every week,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cEach of the firms we have settled with should have known better and would rightfully take the same action against us if we stole their services.\u201d<\/p>\n
The NBR’s log-in page for subscribers.<\/p>\n
Scott said the settlements had set an important precedent that would benefit all media. \u201cIt\u2019s time we collectively draw a line in the sand.\u201d<\/p>\n
NBR introduced a paywall 16 years ago, while the NZ Herald\u2019s Premium subscription service launched in 2019. Stuff introduced digital subscriptions for its metropolitan titles in 2023.<\/p>\n
Scott said NBR had developed a \u201csophisticated system\u201d to flag those who were breaching its terms and copyright conditions. <\/p>\n
\u201cWe are now working through a list of member subscribers who have been flagged by the newly implemented system.\u201d<\/p>\n
He said NBR would give these firms until the end of November to put their houses in order.<\/p>\n
\u201cA sporting analogy might be that the ref has called both captains and allowed them time to talk to their players about what will happen if they carry on infringing.<\/p>\n
\u201cCEOs are not necessarily aware of the breaches within the teams they lead, but they are responsible\/accountable for this illegal activity.<\/p>\n
\u201cI stand by my prediction that this issue will play out in the courts in 2026.\u201d<\/p>\n
The NZ Herald launched its Premium subscription service in 2019.<\/p>\n
NBR said it had also disabled the ability for subscribers to copy, print or save articles to PDF \u2013 \u201canother practice we understand is prevalent at many New Zealand businesses to get around media paywalls\u201d. <\/p>\n
\u201cFollowing a couple of years in which several high-profile media businesses have folded in this country, New Zealand business and Government departments need to ensure they are backing the industry appropriately,\u201d Scott said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe hold the powerful to account, and too many have taken the media\u2019s vital role in democracy for granted.\u201d <\/p>\n
Editor-at-Large Shayne Currie is one of New Zealand\u2019s most experienced senior journalists and media leaders. He has held executive and senior editorial roles at NZME including Managing Editor, NZ Herald Editor and Herald on Sunday Editor and has a small shareholding in NZME.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cFollowing those investigations, NBR last week secured settlements from two leading fund managers and one national law firm.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":104792,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[542,138,8556,9539,1138,295,2936,8307,6712,13102,1073,3556,1451,111,43,139,3591,69,1118,1523,31420,75890,32258,21674,75889,13660,4499,4744,62639,8238,102],"class_list":["post-104791","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-access","tag-business","tag-companies","tag-content","tag-firm","tag-fund","tag-insider","tag-law","tag-legal","tag-managers","tag-media","tag-national","tag-nbr","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-numbers","tag-nz","tag-of","tag-over","tag-passwords","tag-paywalled","tag-reaches","tag-scrutiny","tag-settlements","tag-sharing","tag-small","tag-stealing","tag-subscription","tag-under","tag-with"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/104791","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=104791"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/104791\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/104792"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=104791"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=104791"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=104791"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}