infoJustice

It was a day of copyright drama in the South African Parliament on the anniversary of Nelson Mandela’s passing.

The National Assembly was considering the Copyright Amendment Bill in the full chamber.  The Bill proposed to update a number of provisions ensuring that creators – not just rights holders that receive their assignments – receive royalties from sales of their work. The Bill also proposed to introduce fair use into South African law and to expand and clarify user rights for libraries, serving people with disabilities and for education.

The previous day, an alarmist petition organized by publishers and signed by over 3000 South African authors opposing the bill was submitted to the Department of Trade and Industry.

When the parties began expressing their positons on the bill, DA MP Ghaleb Cachalia spoke against the fair use rights in the bill. This was a major shift as MP Cachalia months earlier had spoken strongly in favor of fair use at the Wikimania Conference held in Cape Town.

Department of Trade and Industry Minister Rob Davies gave a strong defense of the bill. He made an especially strong rebuttal to those stoking fears about including the US legal concept of fair use in South African law. “If there was no fair use in the US,” he explained in an impassioned tone, “our own Trevor Noah would not be quoting Fox news in his nightly parody. He does not seek license from Fox news for his work.”

When the votes were taken, parties representing an overwhelming majority of the MPs had endorsed the bill, but it came up 12 votes short of what was needed to pass it on to the Council of the Provinces (the second house). The battle for copyright reform in South Africa appeared lost until the new year.

But hours later the drama continued. After passing a new performers protection bill, more MPs from the ANC were whipped to join the chamber and the Copyright Amendment Bill was passed on a second vote.

The process is far from over. Now the bill must pass through the National Council of Provinces and then return to the National Assembly to rectify any changes before being signed into law by the President.  But the passage was a major victory for those in South Africa who have been working for over 20 years to update its user rights and other provisions.