Petition Urges ‘Development-Focused’ Review of the South African Copyright Act

The African Commons Project (TACP) has launched a petition, in cooperation with South Africa’s National Consumer Forum, calling on the South African Department of Trade and Industry (dti) to conduct a “consultative, development-focused Copyright Review.”
The South African Copyright Act was promulgated in 1978 and has not been substantially amended since. The dti has announced plans to review the Act, but the exact timing of the review is unclear. The TACP/Consumer Forum petition, drafted with inputs from the ACA2K South Africa research team, calls for a wide range of stakeholders to be involved in the review, and for eventual revisions of the Act to reflect South Africa’s status as a developing nation — via provisions that maximise user/consumer access for purposes of education and innovation, including such access by disabled persons. Those wishing to find out more about the petition should go to the TACP website. The latest versions of the South African ACA2K country report and policy brief, authored by Dr Tobias Schonwetter (UCT IP Unit), Caroline Ncube (UCT IP Unit) and Pria Chetty (Chetty Law, Johannesburg) can be found at here

(written by Chris Armstrong, ACA2K research manager, LINK Centre, WITS)