What is the situation when you want to include
information which is
essentially in the public domain (e.g. a historical list of the Governors-
General of NZ) but where all the convenient sources have their own
copyright notices? Are they in effect copyrighting the information (which I
would consider to be in the public domain) or just their presentation of
it?
Facts cannot be copyrighted, only particular presentations can. Even if
someone claims copyright on a very basic factual list, you can safely
ignore it.
Regards,
Erik