ReCreate Statement on the National Assembly’s Passing of the Copyright Amendment Bill & Performers Protection Amendment Bill

Release date: 07 March 2024

ReCreate and our affiliated organisations of creators and users of copyright, including COSATU, SADTU, Blind SA, SAGA, Wikimedia ZA, Scholarly Horizons, musicians, filmmakers, authors, academics, and more, commend the National Assembly for passing the Copyright Amendment Bill (CAB) and Performers Protection Amendment Bill (PPAB) on 29 February 2024. We now call on the President to SIGN THE BILLS into law, urgently and without further delay.

This progressive legislation is the culmination of 10 years of work by the Department of Trade and Industry; the process included multiple rounds of stakeholder engagement, extending to the Provinces where it won support. The Bills survived economic impact scrutiny, as reflected in a DTI conducted SEIAS Report, and brings our outdated 1978 Copyright Act and 1967 Performers’ Protection Act in line with global treaties like The Berne Convention, the Trips Agreement, and the Beijing Treaty.

The CAB introduces Fair Use and Fair Royalties, providing a long overdue legal framework within which industries pay creatives a fair share of the income generated from their work. It also helps to ensure that collecting agencies - that collect royalties on behalf of creatives - are effectively regulated. Fair Use improves access to learning material for the visually or otherwise impaired as well as impoverished schools and learners. The provision goes further in providing a mechanism to encourage innovation and promote a right to research for public good. Despite inaccurate calls that “fair use is free use”, Fair Use provides a 4-step test to measure whether usage of a copyright work can be deemed “fair”. The doctrine has been implemented in at least 12 countries around the world, including the U.S., with evidence pointing towards its positive impact on creative and other industries. We agree with the President in his 2022 Heritage Day speech, where he said that the Bills “..will go a long way in protecting our artists and towards addressing their concerns about the collection and distribution of royalties.”

Access to information and education is enshrined in our Constitution, and the amendment of discriminatory legislation such as the Copyright Act is long overdue, and the signing of the Copyright Amendment Bill into law is extremely urgent. (Excerpt from SADTU Statement, 01 March 2024)
The Constitutional Court found the [current Copyright] Act to be unconstitutional to the extent that it required persons who are blind or visually impaired to obtain the consent of the copyright holder before being able to convert books and other published works into accessible formats, such as braille or large print. Finding in Blind SA’s favour, the court ordered, amongst others, that Parliament fix the Copyright Act before the end of September 2024… [The Copyright Amendment Bill] will reduce the book famine, and it will no longer be a criminal offense to convert books into accessible formats. (Excerpt from Blind SA Statement, 29 February 2024)

The CAB balances the rights of ownership of copyright with access to copyrighted work, and provides additional support for copyright disputes; the mechanism of the Copyright Tribunal is intended to make access to legal recourse more affordable and attainable.

ReCreate and our affiliates support these Bills, and would like to see them urgently implemented towards improving the lives of many South Africans.

This seismic shift in the copyright landscape does represent a redistribution of wealth of sorts, and certainly an increase in legalised access to learning. We ask that multi-national companies and intermediaries should support South Africa’s transformation to a more equitable society, and should cease from being dishonest about the contents of the Bills.

A prosperous people will build a prosperous nation for all.

For further enquiries contact: Kyla

ReCreate Convener

recreateza@gmail.com