President Cyril Ramaphosa's failure to sign the Copyright Amendment Bill into law by the September 21 deadline set by the Constitutional Court shows that the government does not care about the plight and rights of blind and visually impaired people, non-profit organisation Blind SA said.
“This is more than a devastating blow to us. We feel there is no interest from the government, including the president,” said Blind SA president Christo de Klerk. Mail & Guardian.
The bill aims to ensure a fairer balance between the commercial rights of copyright holders and the right of users, including the visually impaired, to access copyrighted works, but it has struggled to see the light of day since being introduced in Parliament in 2017. During that time, concerns about the constitutionality of some of the bill's provisions led President Ramaphosa to refuse to sign the bill, sending it back to Parliament in 2020.
Earlier this year, both houses of parliament approved the bill, the first comprehensive effort to modernize South Africa's copyright laws in more than 50 years, and sent it to the president for assent.
This comes after Blind SA, which campaigns for independence for the blind, and Section 27, a Public Interest Law Centre rights group, took the Minister of Trade, Industry and Competition to the Constitutional Court in 2022, challenging the constitutionality of current copyright laws, alleging that they discriminate against blind and visually impaired people.
The court ruled that the law was unconstitutional because it required blind people to “obtain the consent of the copyright holder before converting books and other published works into an accessible format, such as Braille or large print.”
The bill mandates that Congress amend copyright law by the end of September 2024 to ensure that books are available in accessible formats for the visually impaired.
The proposed amendments would introduce changes to the law, such as allowing people with disabilities to convert publications into accessible formats without needing permission from the copyright holder.
The government has previously said that if the Copyright Amendment Bill becomes law, South Africa will ratify the Marrakesh Treaty, which was adopted by member states of the World Intellectual Property Organization in 2013.
The treaty creates a series of limitations and exceptions to traditional copyright law to facilitate the production and international transfer of books specially adapted for the blind.
“By ratifying this international treaty, visually impaired people in South Africa will be able to exchange reading materials in accessible formats across borders, making hundreds of thousands of titles available in accessible formats,” Section 27 said. M&G.
According to the proposed amendments, South Africa's copyright law is based on British law and will interpret the concept of “fair dealing” liberally to determine whether it is permissible to use or copy copyrighted material without a licence.
However, the latest amendments mean that South Africa will have to adhere to the concept of “fair use” adopted by the United States, which allows the reproduction and use of copyrighted material without the prior consent or permission of the author or publisher.
The bill would allow creatives, such as photographers, to negotiate copyright ownership agreements rather than paying a party a fee to automatically become the sole copyright owner for the entire term of the copyright.
The bill was subject to extensive public hearings and deliberations both in Congress and in state legislatures across the country, and was rejected by the International Federation of Authors Societies, the world's leading network of authors' societies.
“The bill is a positive initiative that fails to deliver on its intended purpose of protecting creators and ensuring a modern, fair and fit-for-purpose copyright environment in South Africa,” the alliance's executive director, Gadi Oron, said in a February statement.
Ramaphosa's spokesman, Vincent Mugwenya, said: M&G The president said Monday he could not confirm when the bill would be signed.
“As always, we will make an announcement once it has been signed,” he said.