The NBR said MBIE had apologised last week, along with a \u201cpromise to send a proposal to rectify the matter this week\u201d.<\/p>\n
The precedent-setting Chief Ombudsman\u2019s opinion has been hailed as a victory for safeguarding copyright journalism.<\/p>\n
Many New Zealand news websites \u2013 including the NZ Herald, BusinessDesk, Stuff\u2019s masthead titles and Newsroom, among others \u2013 publish subscription journalism.<\/p>\n
The NBR\u2019s terms and conditions state that a subscription log-on cannot be shared with others and that doing so breaches copyright. Similarly, paywalled articles cannot be cut, pasted and distributed.<\/p>\n
\u201cCopyright theft isn\u2019t clever. It isn\u2019t a loophole. And it certainly isn\u2019t victimless,\u201d NBR co-owner Todd Scott said.<\/p>\n
\u201cEvery person or organisation that takes journalism they haven\u2019t paid for is effectively asking our loyal, paying members to subsidise them. <\/p>\n
\u201cWe won\u2019t allow that. If you choose to steal our journalism rather than pay for it, we will hold you accountable. Not because we need to. Because our members shouldn\u2019t have to pay for people who think the rules don\u2019t apply to them.\u201d<\/p>\n
NBR co-owners Todd and Jackie Scott.<\/p>\n
The NBR said it had been advised that MBIE shared at least 149 articles; Inland Revenue at least 43 articles; the DIA at least 23 articles; and the SFO at least 15. <\/p>\n
\u201cThe FMA initially denied any breach, but on further investigation admitted to the Ombudsman [that] there were seven instances of FMA staff members sharing either screenshots or PDFs of NBR articles,\u201d the NBR said in its statement today. <\/p>\n
\u201cIt apologised to NBR and acknowledged it should not have happened. The DIA, meanwhile, has admitted as many as 210 unauthorised DIA staff accessed NBR articles in 2025 and 144 people in 2024.\u201d<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, the NBR says it has also filed legal action against private investment firm Snowball Effect. It said it could not comment further on the claim as the matter was now before the courts.<\/p>\n
Snowball Effect has been approached for comment.<\/p>\n
Agencies respond<\/p>\n
Media Insider also sought comment from the five government departments.<\/p>\n
An Internal Affairs spokeswoman said on Sunday: \u201cWe can confirm that we are making a payment of just over $21,600 (including GST) to NBR in relation to use of NBR\u2019s online subscription service by DIA staff. <\/p>\n
\u201cThe payment covers the cost of the online NBR subscriptions we would have needed for our staff to access these articles.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have reminded all staff about their copyright obligations and will continue to monitor how staff use media subscriptions.\u201d<\/p>\n
The FMA, Inland Revenue and SFO are expected to respond today.<\/p>\n
MBIE confirmed on Sunday it had \u201coffered an apology to NBR for the unauthorised sharing of their content\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe can also confirm that we are in discussions regarding remediation,\u201d MBIE deputy secretary corporate and digital shared services Paul Stocks said.<\/p>\n
\u201cMBIE takes its obligations relating to copyright, licensing agreements, and the management of third-party content seriously.\u201d<\/p>\n
Stocks said since becoming aware of the unauthorised sharing of NBR content, MBIE had \u201cstrengthened compliance measures, increased the number of NBR subscriptions available to staff, updated internal guidance and communications on staff obligations, and improved the overall management of subscriptions\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cMBIE is committed to working constructively with NBR to resolve this matter. As discussions are ongoing, we have no further comment.\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":"The NBR said today it had settled with Internal Affairs (DIA), the Financial Markets Authority (FMA) and the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":613611,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[42344,26696,1554,302113,27252,138,5162,7323,802,302114,22427,266,2936,6712,1073,130,1451,111,43,139,69,1523,24459,87106,4764,75889,1529,1865,1237,3114,6202,102,216078],"class_list":["post-613610","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-42344","tag-agencies","tag-alleged","tag-bouyed","tag-breaches","tag-business","tag-chasing","tag-copyright","tag-costs","tag-crusade","tag-damages","tag-government","tag-insider","tag-legal","tag-media","tag-more","tag-nbr","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-over","tag-paywall","tag-pursuing","tag-revelations","tag-settlements","tag-three","tag-today","tag-two","tag-website","tag-wins","tag-with","tag-yearlong"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/613610","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=613610"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/613610\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/613611"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=613610"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=613610"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=613610"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}