The copyright reform bill is scheduled to be approved by the president. April 16, 2017, Cape Town, South Africa, Parliament House, Companies Garden in Cape Town, Western Cape. (Frederic Soltan/Corbis via Getty Images)
- The National Diet passed the Copyright Amendment Bill despite opposition from those involved in the creative industry.
- The next step is for the president to sign the bill.
- Lawyers believe there will be legal challenges if this becomes law.
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Parliament passed the controversial copyright reform bill on Thursday, despite strong opposition from those in the creative industries.
MPs from the Economic Freedom Fighters, Democratic Alliance, African Christian Democratic Party and Freedom Front Plus rejected the bill.
The bill will now be sent to President Cyril Ramaphosa for approval.
The bill was introduced in Parliament by the Department of Trade and Industry in 2017 to modernize South Africa's copyright laws, which have been in place since 1978.
But national and international writers' associations oppose it, arguing that in its current form it weakens copyright and harms their livelihoods.
Carla Collette, a partner at Weber Wentzel, said the bill has “noble aims” but has not achieved its desired results.
Collette said there are several problems with the bill, and even if the president ultimately signs it into law, he expects there will still be legal challenges.
“There are so many issues with this bill that it could bring challenges from multiple areas,” she previously told News24.
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One commercial issue is the introduction of a 25-year limit on the transfer of rights. This means that rights sold after 25 years are automatically revoked. “Who would want to buy your copyright or your artwork if the ownership goes back to the original owner in 25 years? That doesn't make sense,” Collette says.
Another controversial element of the bill is the introduction of the fair use doctrine, which allows the free use of copyrighted works in certain circumstances, such as research and education.
The problem with this, however, is that the burden is on the copyright owner to prove, through costly litigation, that the use of their copyrighted work does not constitute fair use.
“This is a lose-lose situation for both creators and users, leading to market uncertainty. The only solution is expensive and wasteful litigation. We don't have that deep pocket of money, and it's a waste of everyone's time and resources.'' Trials in court are not what good law should do,'' Gadi Oron, executive director of the International Confederation of Authors and Composers Associations (CISAC), said in a statement. Stated.
CISAC is the world's leading author association network, with more than 225 member associations in more than 116 countries. Björn Ulvaeus, singer-songwriter and co-founder of ABBA, is the president of CISAC.
end book hunger
The bill also allows people with disabilities to access copyrighted works, for example by converting books into a format such as Braille so that they can be used by people who are blind. .
Its passage was then welcomed by an organization called Blind SA and SECTION27.
“I am pleased that Parliament has passed the Copyright Amendment Bill, in particular section 19D, which provides an exception for transcribing reading material into accessible formats such as Braille, large print and audio.
“This will reduce book hunger and, in terms of apartheid copyright law, it will no longer be a crime to convert books into accessible formats without the consent of the copyright holder,” said Jace Nair, chief executive of Blind SA. he said.
Blind SA called on the President to sign the bill.
A previous bill passed by Parliament was sent back by Ramaphosa in June 2020 for reconsideration. The president had expressed his concerns about its constitutionality.