National Breaches Crown Copyright

• notices and features
• 10 years ago
• Categories: Media, national, same old national, tourism
• Tags: copyright, national, tourism

Tourism New Zealand has done a new video aimed at overseas investors that showcases The New Zealand Story. It is a lavish production, with sweeping helicopter footage galore and what sounds to me like a Tem Morrison voiceover. Here’s a version from YouTube:

There are only two problems with this video:

1. Less importantly, there is the wooden, sort of bumbly guy at the start;
2. More importantly, there is the fact that the National party thinks it can rip-off a Tourism New Zealand video wholesale, slap a clickable National logo in the corner, and call it National political propaganda on YouTube. Did Tem Morrison sign a release for his voice over to be used for the National party as well as for New Zealand investment and tourism? I bet he didn’t.

This is a government party trying to hijack a public service video for political ends. That stinks. John Key should pull this video, which likely breaches Tourism New Zealand’s Crown copyright over the work, off National’s partisan YouTube channel and leave the original The New Zealand Story on newzealand.com where it belongs.