Summarised by Centrist
Interest.co.nz has launched a misleading attack on Centrist. In a piece on copyright enforcement, Juha Saarinen falsely claims Centrist republishes “whole articles” without permission—articles he describes as “stolen” and “illegal.”
Yet Interest.co.nz’s own publisher, David Chaston, acknowledged the opposite in an email to Centrist: “We know we can’t stop you summarising on a ‘fair use’ basis, or using links. You have every legal right to do so.”
Chaston’s statement is clear: Centrist is not breaking the law, nor acting dishonestly. His request for removal was based on personal preference, not legality.
Despite this, Saarinen’s article misrepresents Centrist’s response. He writes: “Our publisher David Chaston asked the Centrist’s Tameem Barakat to take down our content, along with links to Interest.co.nz… Barakat refused.”
This framing is highly misleading. It implies Centrist rejected a valid legal demand, when in reality, Chaston never issued one—because he knew he had no grounds to.
Saarinen further distorts the issue by quoting Copyright Licensing NZ’s Sam Irvine, who claims summarising articles without permission is “totally illegal”—a dubious interpretation of New Zealand’s Fair Dealing provisions.
These provisions explicitly allow limited use of copyrighted material for reporting, commentary, and criticism—a common practice across the media industry.
Editorial note: Centrist does not republish full articles. We summarise publicly available news, always in our own words, and provide source attribution when appropriate. Interest.co.nz’s claim that we “steal” content is demonstrably false. Their own publisher admitted as much. Their real complaint isn’t about copyright—it’s about control.
