by Denise R Nicholson, Scholarly Horizons In its landmark ruling on 7 May 2025, the Constitutional Court has opened the doors to access to information and accessible formats for people with disabilities. It has also paved...
Read MoreSouth Africa’s Copyright Amendment Bill had been sitting on the desk of President Cyril Ramaphosa for over a year, waiting to be signed into law. But instead of signing the bill, the President returned it to parliament citing constitutional concerns with certain aspects, including new exceptions for libraries, education and persons with disabilities. If enacted, the bill would have helped teaching, learning and research during COVID-19 lockdowns. Instead South Africans are forced to struggle under the current, outdated law. EIFL guest blogger Denise R. Nicholson, Scholarly Communications Librarian, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, discusses challenges and issues.
Read More[Denise Nicholson] … On 16 June 2020, the President elected to refer the Bill back to Parliament on the grounds of “constitutional concerns”. What is very disappointing and surprising is that the President ignored a Senior Counsel’s Opinion on the Bill, sent to his office, as well as hundreds of submissions, letters, messages, and public presentations in favour of these exceptions throughout the legislative process. Instead, and perhaps under pressure, he sent the Bill back based purely on one submission to Parliament made by a Senior Counsel on behalf of his client, the Copyright Coalition of South Africa. He failed to give his own presidential reasons or opinion as to why issues raised were likely to be “unconstitutional”.
Read MoreIn his online newsletter, President Ramaphosa regularly speaks about unemployment, poverty and various socio-economic problems that are negatively affecting millions of people in our country. He stresses the importance of education, social upliftment and the need to improve the lives of people with disabilities. He stresses the importance of a reading culture and an employed public. He talks about the various Government initiatives and plans underway to address many of these issues. Yet, he fails to acknowledge that access to information and knowledge-sharing are key elements for socio-economic development and advancement, teaching and learning, as well as creativity and innovation in South Africa.
Read MoreOn 28th March 2019, South Africa’s Copyright Amendment Bill was approved by the upper house of Parliament in South Africa, the National Council of Provinces, clearing the way for the President to sign the Bill into law. The long awaited Bill brings the 1978 Copyright Act, adopted in a pre-internet era, into the digital age – rules regarding libraries, archives, education and research had never been updated during this time. But one year on, the Bill has not been signed into law.
Read MoreThe current Copyright Act has no provisions for libraries, archives, galleries and museums. As an afterthought, limited provisions were included in Section 13 regulations for libraries and archives. Digitisation is the main form of preserving material in the 21st century. Yet the country’s copyright law doesn’t permit it. This causes serious problems for libraries, archives, museums and galleries. They are currently unable to digitise any of their works without first having to get copyright permission, and to pay high copyright fees.
Read MoreSouth Africa’s current copyright law was enacted 41 years ago. The Copyright Act No. 98 of 1978 had no provisions for people with disabilities – and that hasn’t changed in more than four decades. This means that every time a person who is blind, deaf, partially-sighted, dyslexic, or paralysed needs to access any information, the content has to be converted into an accessible format before they can read and understand it… Copyright permission has to be obtained before the works can be made accessible via Braille or other accessible formats. Rights-holders do not always respond timeously or at all, which means the students have to wait for their study material in accessible format. Sometimes it doesn’t come at all. They also have to pay high copyright fees for the conversions, which they do not always have in view of their limited budgets or resources.
Read MoreOpponents of the South African Copyright Amendment Bill claim that the fair use provisions in Section 12 of the Bill far exceed those of the U.S. They state that if the Bill is signed by the President, it will be the only country in the world with such extensive rights for users. They warn, as part of their ongoing media campaigns and at seminars, that this will be ‘extremely catastrophic’ for authors and publishers in South Africa, and that foreign investors will no longer invest in the creative industries in South Africa. This is an exaggeration and fear-mongering at its best.
Read MoreConcerns have been raised in the media by some opponents of the Copyright Amendment Bill that Section 12B(1)(a) will promote plagiarism. They have suggested that researchers’ works will not be cited, and that the important role that citations play in academic scholarship will be undermined. This viewpoint is myopic and incorrect.
Read More“Fair use” is a doctrin adopted by some countries that permits the use of copyright material like books, journals, music and art work – without requiring permission from the copyright holder. It provides a balance between the just demands of rights-holders and the need for people to use copyright material for education, research, in libraries and archives.
Read More[Coauthored with Leti Kleyn]… Globally, the scholarly publishing system is in dire need of financial and legislative change. To address this issue, the Max Planck Digital Library in Munich has produced a White Paper that aims to completely reform the business model of academic journals. The paper proposes that individual countries change the underlying legal and financial structures that challenge the high subscription fees levied by publishers. Could a country like South Africa manage the changes as advocated in the White Paper? Getting new financial models going will be difficult because of the complexity of the industry’s internal workings and a shortage of data on actual expenditure. However, the country is making headway on the legal framework front.
Read MoreAs you may know, we have been lobbying since 1998 for better copyright laws. On 27 July 2015, the Department of Trade and Industry published a new Copyright Amendment Bill for public comment. See: ...
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