To:
The New Zealand Government,
The Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE),
The Minister for Trade and Export Growth,
The Minister of Commerce and Consumer Affairs.

 
We, the people, are asking one thing: DO NOT extend copyright to Life + 70. And if you already signed on to it through the CPTPP—UNSIGN. REVERSE. FIGHT BACK.

This isn't about “harmonizing” with the world. It's not about “innovation.” It’s not even about trade.
This is about locking up art, culture, and history for an extra 20 years—not to benefit authors or creators, but to serve the billion-dollar interests of foreign media giants.

❌ Let’s call it what it is:
A corporate power grab, forced into New Zealand law under the guise of a trade deal.
Nobody voted for this. Nobody asked for this. No child ever said,

"I wish that book my grandad loved was still under copyright so I couldn’t read it for free."
Yet here we are.

📚 What does this mean for us?
Thousands of books, songs, films, and artworks will be delayed from entering the public domain.
Educators, artists, remixers, and historians will lose access to tools that fuel creativity and learning.
New Zealanders will be stripped of rights to share, preserve, and reimagine their own cultural heritage.
All for what? So Mickey Mouse can stay locked behind a paywall? So multinational publishers can squeeze 20 more years out of a song written in 1953?

🧠 Let’s be clear:
Copyright was never meant to last forever.
Extending copyright doesn’t inspire creativity. It suffocates it.
The longer we delay the public domain, the longer we punish our children, our libraries, and our own history.
This is not what a free society does.

🇳🇿 New Zealand: You have a choice.
You can be another country that folds.
Or you can be the country that says no.

Say no to foreign corporate pressure.
Say no to locking up culture for another generation.
Say no to a copyright regime that favors control over creativity.

We demand that you withdraw, renegotiate, or amend the CPTPP agreement to protect New Zealand’s right to a public domain.

We demand that you protect the public—not just the publishers.

We demand that you UNSIGN THE COPYRIGHT TRAP™.

 
✍️ Signed,
Creators, archivists, educators, remixers, librarians, students, musicians, programmers, artists, and citizens who believe in free access to knowledge and culture.

🗣️ Add your voice. Share. Speak up. Because silence is how the public domain dies.