Copyright Amendment Act ‘discussion’

SOUTH AFRICA’s Copyright Act is stuck in the 1970s paradigm of ‘fair-dealing’, in this interview on Capetalk, it may appear that the main innovation here is fair-use. This discussion avoids the troubling issue of the failure of legislators to include permissive licensing schemes, which currently fail by default under the Amended legislation.

In terms of the amendment, there is no way to opt-out of the default copyright regime, and creators will not be able to ‘sign-away’ or gift their copyright in favour of permissive licensing, for example under the creative commons.

This is a significant failing in the new act and the last time I looked, the legislation erred in favour of large collection agencies and publishing houses such as Independent Group who feel entitled to publish without payment.

In effect we still in the old days of agencies collecting on behalf of creators who never receive a penny.

The debate also touches on the successful campaign to include resale royalties waged by persons such as myself.

Readers may be aware of a dispute in the visual arts world in this regard going back to the 90s and the resulting backlash by monied art-dealers.

Medialternatives has written about this issue here and here.

We’ll let you enjoy the audio

Refilwe speaks to Tusi Fokane Coordinator of ReCreate

 

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