“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.
[South African National Editors Forum] SANEF celebrates the unanimous decision taken yesterday by the Parliamentary Portfolio Committee on Trade and Industry to include the principle of “fair use” in the Copyright Amendment Bill. The principle of “fair use” allows for the use of copyrighted material for a limited or “transformative” purpose such as to quote the latter or use pictures and video material in news reports, comment on, parody or criticise copyrighted work.
[Xiyin Tang] Abstract: The fair use defense is frequently invoked as the most important First Amendment safeguard in copyright law, and the effect a defendant’s use has upon the potential market for the copyrighted work is often cited as the most important factor in that determination. Yet courts and commentators alike have struggled with how to define the potential market for a copyrighted work, either underdefining, overdefining, or altogether failing to define what that market is, or should be.
[VIDEO] We don't own the images of our own history. Educational resources are owned elsewhere. South Africans cannot sample, adapt, recreate. Innovation that is possible in the US is illegal in South Africa and some people want to keep it that way.
[Abstract] This chapter discusses the evolution of the jurisprudential understanding in the European Union of the relationship between copyright and freedom of artistic expression and demonstrates how courts specifically in France but also in several other Member States have been accepting a sort of “fair use” approach through the application of fundamental rights as external limitations to copyright law.
[Sean Flynn and Peter Jaszi] We write in reference to the August 1, 2018, filing of the IIPA, in respect of South Africa’s proposed copyright amendments. IIPA claims that adoption of the South Africa copyright amendment bill “would place South Africa out of compliance with the AGOA eligibility criteria regarding intellectual property.” We find this claim wholly unsupported.
Last week, the U.S. Congressional Research Service released a report, NAFTA Renegotiation and Modernization, which describes U.S. negotiating objectives chapter by chapter, citing publicly available information. It notes that the U.S. has tabled language on fair use that walks back the commitment to balance found in the TPP text.
[Sean Flynn, Michael W. Carroll, Peter Jaszi, Ariel Katz, Leandro Mendonça, Diane Peters, and Allan Rocha de Souza] Copyright laws the world over are under massive pressure to reform to fit the digital environment. One key area often in need of reform is in the exceptions to copyright that enable the digital practices. Without exceptions, common practices may be illegal, such as sharing photos on social media, making technical copies to send and stream, and uploading excerpts to closed networks for student access. None of these and dozens of other digital issues were considered when most of our laws were drafted in the 1970s. South Africa is on the cusp of reforming its law with a new hybrid exception that contains both a set of modern specific exceptions for various purposes and an open general exception that can be used to assess any use not specifically authorized.
We commend Parliament for its forward-looking copyright amendments that will assist South African creators and users of copyrighted works benefit from the digital age. We commend you as well for the open public process through which you have drafted the bill. We support the specific textual suggestions included in the ReCreateSA submission. We provide the following comments focusing on Section 12 of the draft Copyright Amendment Bill, and in particular the “fair use” provision in 12B.
Abstract: Legal paradigms change in response to political, economic, social, cultural and technological conditions. While these paradigms have moved from developed to developing countries, they rarely move in the opposite direction. Nevertheless, some transplants from developed countries do involve legal paradigms that align well with the needs, interests, conditions and priorities of developing countries. A case in point is the transplant of the fair use model in U.S. copyright law, which has attracted considerable debate, research and policy attention in the past few decades.
[Savannah van Dongen] With the EU and other states looking to modernise copyright law for the digital era, education exceptions in copyright law are a hot topic. Particularly, the second paragraph of Article 4 of the proposed directive on Copyright in the Digital Single Market that gives room to educational licenses is being contested by educators, learners, and educational organisations. Canadian copyright law includes the doctrine of “fair dealing” — a unique version of a common exception.
The South African Portfolio Committee on Trade and Industry has released its report on its most recent copyright reform debate. The summary notes: "An area of major contention was whether the Copyright Act should be based on the ‘fair use’ or the ‘fair dealing’ principle. The Committee strongly favoured ‘the fair use’ principle but with exceptions to manage the openness of the system... "