The Spinoff copyright policy
1. About these Terms
These Terms (“Terms”) govern your access to and use of The Spinoff website at thespinoff.co.nz, including its articles, journalism, commentary, images, videos, audio, newsletters, databases, archives and other content and services (collectively, the “Website”).
In these Terms, “The Spinoff”, “we”, “us” and “our” refer to the entity that owns or operates the Website. “You” and “your” refer to any person or organisation accessing or using the Website.
By accessing or using the Website, you agree to comply with these Terms. If you do not agree, you must not use the Website.
2. Permitted use
You may access and use the Website for personal, non-commercial purposes, subject to these Terms and applicable law.
You may read, share links to and refer to The Spinoff content, provided you do not reproduce, republish or otherwise use that content beyond what is permitted by law or expressly authorised by us in writing.
You may download and print extracts from The Spinoff content for your own personal and non-commercial use only, provided you maintain and abide by any author attribution, copyright or trademark notice or restriction in any material that you download or print.
Access to the Website does not transfer to you any ownership rights in its content or intellectual property.
3. Intellectual property
Unless otherwise indicated, all rights in the Website and its content are owned by, licensed to or otherwise controlled by The Spinoff or the relevant rights holders.
This includes, without limitation:
Articles, journalism, features, reviews, opinion pieces and commentary.
Headlines, text, photographs, illustrations, graphics, video and audio.
Website design, layout, branding and logos.
Databases, archives, collections, compilations and the selection and arrangement of content.
Software, code and other materials made available through the Website.
These materials are protected by copyright, trade mark and other applicable intellectual property laws, including the Copyright Act 1994 (New Zealand).
Except as permitted by applicable law or expressly authorised by us in writing, you must not copy, reproduce, distribute, publish, adapt, translate, sell, licence, commercially exploit or create derivative works from any Website content.
4. Strict prohibition on scraping and automated extraction
All unauthorised scraping, crawling, harvesting and automated extraction of content or data from the Website is strictly prohibited.
Without our prior written permission, you must not, directly or indirectly, whether personally or through a third party:
a. Use any bot, crawler, scraper, spider, script, software, AI agent, automated browser, data extraction tool or other automated or systematic means to access, collect, download, copy or extract content or data from the Website.
b. Systematically retrieve, index, harvest, aggregate or reproduce Website content, including articles, headlines, snippets, metadata, images, audio, video, archives or other material.
c. Extract or compile Website content into a database, dataset, repository, content feed, search index or other collection, whether for personal, commercial, research, analytical or other purposes.
d. Use Website content to develop, train, fine-tune, test, benchmark or operate artificial intelligence systems, machine-learning models, large language models, retrieval systems or similar technologies.
e. Use Website content to create or populate a competing publication, news service, content aggregation service, commercial database, newsletter, search product or other service.
f. Circumvent, disable, evade or interfere with access restrictions, rate limits, technical protection measures, bot detection, authentication controls or other safeguards implemented by us.
g. Request, instruct, authorise or knowingly facilitate another person or service to undertake any of the prohibited activities described in this section.
This prohibition applies regardless of whether the content is publicly accessible, available without registration, visible in a browser, accessible through a publicly available URL or capable of being retrieved using automated tools.
It also applies whether the activity is conducted once or repeatedly, on a small or large scale, for commercial or non-commercial purposes, or by or on behalf of a business, individual, research organisation or technology provider.
No permission to scrape or extract content is granted merely because the Website is publicly accessible or because a crawler can technically access it.
5. Search engines, accessibility and lawful exceptions
Section 4 does not prohibit ordinary manual browsing of the Website by human visitors.
Any automated access by search engines, accessibility services, research organisations, archiving services or other third parties requires our prior written permission unless the activity is otherwise permitted by applicable law or expressly authorised by us.
Where we grant permission, it may be subject to conditions concerning the purpose, scope, frequency, content, duration and commercial use of access.
Nothing in these Terms is intended to exclude or restrict any right or exception that cannot lawfully be excluded or restricted under applicable law.
6. Fees for unauthorised scraping and extraction
Unauthorised scraping, crawling, harvesting or automated extraction of Website content may result in a charge for the unauthorised use of that content, together with recovery of any other amounts and remedies legally available to The Spinoff.
Where unauthorised activity involves the use, copying, extraction or commercial exploitation of Website content, The Spinoff reserves the right to seek payment reflecting, as applicable:
a. The reasonable licence fee that would have been payable for the relevant use, had permission been requested and granted.
b. Reasonable and demonstrable costs incurred in investigating, identifying, documenting and responding to the activity.
c. Reasonable costs of mitigation, technical remediation and measures required to protect the Website and its content.
d. Any damages, additional damages, account of profits, legal costs or other relief available under applicable law.
Where appropriate, The Spinoff may issue an invoice or written demand setting out the basis of the amount claimed, the relevant activity and the calculation of the amount sought.
A fee or invoice will not, by itself, establish liability or make an otherwise unenforceable amount payable. Any claim will be subject to applicable law, the facts of the relevant activity and any available defences.
Nothing in this section limits The Spinoff's right to seek an injunction, pursue a claim for copyright infringement or breach of contract, or exercise any other lawful remedy.
The Spinoff may also offer licences for authorised data extraction, content syndication, republication, research or AI-related use. Any such permission must be agreed in writing before the relevant activity begins.
7. Technical protection and access restrictions
We may implement technical and operational measures to protect the Website, our content, our systems and our users.
These measures may include rate limits, blocking or restricting IP addresses, restricting automated access, requiring authentication, changing technical interfaces and taking other reasonable steps to prevent unauthorised use.
You must not attempt to bypass or interfere with these measures.
We may suspend or restrict access to the Website where we reasonably believe that these Terms have been breached, that automated activity is placing an unreasonable burden on our systems, or that action is necessary to protect our rights, content, users or services.
8. Third-party content and links
The Website may contain links to third-party websites, services or materials. We do not control all third-party content and are not responsible for its availability, accuracy or terms of use.
Third-party material appearing on the Website may be subject to separate copyright, licensing and other restrictions. You are responsible for obtaining any permissions required for your use of such material.
9. User conduct
You must not use the Website:
a. In breach of any applicable law or regulation.
b. To infringe the intellectual property, privacy or other rights of any person.
c. To interfere with, disrupt or compromise the security or operation of the Website.
d. To gain unauthorised access to any account, system, data or restricted area.
e. To misrepresent your identity, affiliation or authority when requesting access to content or services.
f. In any way that circumvents the restrictions or permissions set out in these Terms.
10. Availability and disclaimers
We aim to maintain the Website and provide accurate and reliable content, but we do not guarantee that the Website will always be available, uninterrupted, secure or error-free.
The Website and its content are provided on an “as available” basis, subject to any rights or guarantees that cannot be excluded under applicable law.
Nothing in these Terms excludes, restricts or modifies any rights or remedies available to consumers under the Consumer Guarantees Act 1993 or other applicable New Zealand law where those rights cannot lawfully be excluded, restricted or modified.
11. Limitation of liability
To the maximum extent permitted by applicable law, The Spinoff will not be liable for indirect or consequential loss arising from your use of, or inability to use, the Website.
Nothing in these Terms excludes or limits liability to the extent that such exclusion or limitation is prohibited by law.
Where you use the Website in trade or for business purposes, any limitation of liability will apply only to the extent permitted by applicable law.
12. Indemnity
To the extent permitted by applicable law, you agree to compensate The Spinoff for reasonable losses, liabilities, damages and costs directly arising from your unlawful use of the Website or your infringement of The Spinoff's intellectual property rights.
This provision does not entitle The Spinoff to recover amounts that are not legally recoverable, or to obtain double recovery for the same loss.
13. Changes to these Terms
We may update these Terms from time to time. The revised Terms will be published on the Website with an updated effective date.
Changes will apply prospectively from the stated effective date, subject to applicable law. Your continued use of the Website after the revised Terms take effect constitutes acceptance of the changes to the extent permitted by law.
14. Governing law
These Terms are governed by the laws of New Zealand.
Any dispute relating to these Terms or use of the Website will be subject to the jurisdiction of the New Zealand courts, subject to any mandatory legal rights or jurisdictional requirements.
15. Contact
For permissions, content licensing, syndication, data access requests or questions about these Terms, please contact:
The Spinoff
Website: https://spinoff.co.nz
Email: https://thespinoff.co.nz/contact
Requests for permission to scrape, extract, reproduce, licence or otherwise reuse Website content must be made in writing. Permission is effective only when expressly granted by an authorised representative of The Spinoff.
Effective date: 22 October 2026
Last updated: 22 October 2026