NBR's subscription webpage. Photo: Screenshot
The National Business Review (NBR) says it has banned Inland Revenue from taking out any subscriptions to its news website after the department breached its copyright by sharing articles across a number of staff.
IRD had a group subscription for 220 users until March last year when that was replaced by a single subscription for a member of its media team.
NBR said between 28 March last year and 17 November this year, 22 different NBR articles were shared with staff members as word documents. Seven articles were shared with 600 staff.
A group subscription to NBR covering 600 staff for four months would ordinarily have cost IRD about $36,000 plus GST, it said in a statement.
- What is productivity? And are Kiwis really so bad at it. Listen to No Stupid Questions with Susan Edmunds
NBR has been cracking down on businesses sharing logins and stories from its paywalled site.
It has secured three other settlements.
NBR has also disabled the ability for subscribers to copy, print or save articles to PDF.
NBR co-owner Todd Scott said at the time, NBR had developed a sophisticated system to flag those who were breaching its terms and copyright conditions and the publication would give those firms already flagged by the system until the end of November to put their houses in order.
He said it was "shocking" the government department tasked with making sure New Zealand businesses and individuals paid their fair share had admitted they were not properly paying for their use of a privately-owned business's product.
"It is, however, worse that they have then refused to pay the appropriate damages in recognition of the seriousness of the breach.
"The irony of the IRD's refusal to pay for its breach will not be lost on the thousands of New Zealand businesses who have been struggling to make ends meet for several years.
"Following 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."
Inland Revenue said it had looked into the issue as a matter of importance and wrote to NBR's lawyer with information about what happened and why.
"We accepted that an error had occurred and apologised for the error in our understanding of the extent of the licence.
"We wanted to put right what had happened. We also sought legal advice. We made what we consider a reasonable offer - $12,500 including GST - in redress, keeping in mind what had actually occurred and what is a reasonable use of taxpayer funds in the circumstances. That was not accepted by Mr Scott. A counteroffer was subsequently made to IR that we did not accept.
"Inland Revenue has a daily email that refers to various media articles on relevant matters. It is circulated to approximately 600 persons. Over an 18-month period, an NBR article was circulated (as an individual word document attachment) to that email list on seven separate occasions.
"Of the seven articles, the number of people actually viewing the article ranged from 18 to, in one instance, 130. We were genuinely engaging with NBR to increase the number of subscriptions to 22 as well as put right our error. However, it was during the discussion to increase our subscription that Mr Scott cancelled the one subscription we had.
"We have now decided not to take up any NBR subscription in the foreseeable future. We are not concerned about not having any subscriptions."
Sign up for Money with Susan Edmunds, a weekly newsletter covering all the things that affect how we make, spend and invest money.