Can a name or title be protected by copyright?
No, the prevailing opinion is that it does not apply to things like names or titles that may be duplicated coincidentally or in unrelated circumstances, although there has been some recent EU case law that suggests that copyright may apply to newspaper headlines; it remains to be seen whether NZ courts would adopt this approach. It follows that copyright has no particular bearing on situations like where two works have the same title, although it would apply if two works with the same title contained material that had been copied or adapted from one to the other. Names and titles may be covered by other types of law like trademark or the tort of passing off; the latter common law doctrine is based on what the public perception of a name or title implies.
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