By Desmond Oriakhogba
A major recurring issue during the public consultations on South Africa’s Copyright Amendment Bill – in which the UCT IP Unit actively participated – centered around how best to balance copyright to safeguard the public interest when promoting creativity, while affording adequate reward and incentives for creators. As expected, the option was between, on the one hand, adjusting and expanding the current set of specific copyright exceptions and limitations and, on the other, transforming the current fair dealing exception into an open and flexible fair use exception, modelled on similar provisions in countries like the United States, Korea, Israel and Singapore. These two options form part of copyright’s internal mechanisms for adequately balancing the competing interests of the stakeholders involved. This article aims to draw attention, however, to external mechanisms afforded by competition law that may, in addition, be deployed towards a balanced copyright regime in South Africa.