Digital files as property in the New Zealand Supreme Court: innovation or confusion?
Abstract
<span>In <i>Dixon v R.</i> [2015] NZSC 147, the New Zealand Supreme Court allowed an appeal from the New Zealand Court of Appeal quashing the conviction of Jonathan Dixon on a charge under s.249(1)(a) of the New Zealand Crimes Act 1961 with accessing a computer system and thereby dishonestly obtaining property. The "property" concerned was a digital recording of footage of a patron married to a member of the British royal family socialising intimately with another patron who was not his wife. The decision to do so is as problematic as it is curious since some of the reasoning of the court does not appear relevant to the particular charge and it is not obvious why it was necessary to resort to this particular charge since it appears that Dixon could have been convicted under a different, far less controversial, charge anyway.</span>
Fields of Study & Subjects
Law
AI
and Intellectual Property
Intellectual Property Law
Copyright and Intellectual Property
Publication details
- Journal / source
- SSRN Electronic Journal
- Publisher
- Elsevier BV
- Volume
- 132
- Issue
- 3
- Pages
- 394
- Publication date
- 1 January 2026
- Language
- EN
- Document type
- Preprint