Long walk to copyright reform #7: South Africa's revised Copyright Amendment Bill is back to Parliament for reaffirmation

Earlier this February, South Africa’s Portfolio Committee on Trade, Industry and Competition began the process of consideration and report on the Copyright Amendment Bill [B13F-2017]. Readers may recall that in September 2023, the National Council of Provinces passed the Copyright Amendment Bill and returned it to the National Assembly for concurrence.

In passing the Copyright Amendment Bill, the National Council of Provinces made some amendments inter alia to align relevant provisions of the Bill with the decision of the Constitutional Court in Blind SA v Minister of Trade, Industry and Competition and others. [As discussed here on The IPKat, South Africa’s Constitutional Court had held that certain provisions of the Copyright Act was unconstitutional to the extent that it restricted access to copyright-protected materials for persons with disabilities. The Constitutional Court gave a period of 24 months from 2022 to enable Parliament conclude its legislative reform process to cure the defect in the Copyright Act]. The National Council of Provinces amended the relevant Bill provisions to clarify that an accessible format copy may be made from a copy that a qualifying person has lawful access to and also clearly stipulate that an authorized entity (who may make an accessible format copy) is as defined in the Bill and need not be prescribed. Furthermore, the commencement section of the Bill was amended to ensure that per the decision in Blind SA v Minister of Trade, Industry and Competition and others, the clauses dealing with access to copyright works for persons with disabilities will come into effect upon publication of the assent to the Bill.

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In addition to the foregoing, clauses relating to circumstances where the author of literary or musical works, visual artistic work, etc. authorises a copyright owner to exercise exclusive rights on such author’s behalf, were amended to provide for equitable remuneration in addition to share of royalties.

The Democratic Alliance; the Freedom Front Plus; and the African Christian Democratic Party are political parties in the minority who oppose the Bill. See Katpost here for the reasons offered by these parties. However, given that majority of the parliamentary members are in support of the Bill, the Portfolio Committee on Trade, Industry and Competition recommended that Parliament adopts its report and approve the Copyright Amendment Bill for re-submission to the President.

 

Next steps
The Copyright Amendment Bill will now be listed in a plenary session of the National Assembly and once it is passed thereat, it will go to the President for assent (or veto).

The long walk continues…

Follow the long walk:

Long Walk to Copyright Reform #1

Long Walk to Copyright Reform #2

Long Walk to Copyright Reform #3

Long Walk to Copyright Reform #4

Long Walk to Copyright Reform #5A

Long Walk to Copyright Reform #5B

Long Walk to Copyright Reform #6