Licensing & Rights Management

Here is how this works in practice. Rights and licensing for a New Zealand production sit on the NZ Copyright Act 1994 with the Copyright Tribunal as the dispute forum. Our rights team builds the chain-of-title and clearance records that global distributors, TV networks, and the The country Film Commission accept. Music rights flow through APRA AMCOS NZ for performing and mechanical rights and through Recorded Music NZ for sound-recording clearances, with sync licensing handled per cue and master-use agreements drafted against the Crowded House, Lorde, and broader Auckland-Wellington indie catalogues when projects need iconic NZ score. Script and option agreements pass through the NZ Writers Guild collective framework, director and editor agreements through DEGNZ, and performer image and likeness through Equity NZ. NZFC and NZ On Air funding agreements carry their own rights, recoupment, and territory clauses that our team negotiates inside the QNZPE NZSPG, Domestic NZSPG, and Co-Production grant frameworks.

Here is the short of it. Cultural-IP rights add a key layer that productions arriving without local counsel routinely under-protect. Taonga (treasured cultural property), te reo Māori dialogue, mātauranga Māori (classic knowledge), waiata, haka, and tikanga-based ritual material carry inalienable iwi and hapū rights that sit alongside — and sometimes outside — the Western copyright framework, and Te Tiriti o Waitangi partnership duties need that licensing be negotiated with mana whenua rather than assumed under work-for-hire defaults.

Here is how this works in practice. We set up with Te Puni Kōkiri-aligned practitioners, Manatū Taonga Ministry of Culture & Heritage, and Te Mātāwai for te reo Māori revitalisation alignment, and we structure cultural-advisor credits, royalty mechanisms, and indigenous-IP protection clauses into deal memos from greenlight forward. Heritage New Zealand Pouhere Taonga licences cover built-heritage filming rights. Image rights for Sam Neill, Lucy Lawless, Karl Urban, Cliff Curtis, Temuera Morrison, Russell Crowe, Keisha Castle-Hughes, Anna Paquin, and other NZ talent route through Equity NZ standards.