SAFREA

We as creatives are the eyes for those who can not see, to assist them in accessing their full rights as citizens in South Africa. 

WE ALL STAND TOGETHER!

The users of our creative material have been denied from interacting with our work, which in turn stagnates the intellectual and economic growth of both sectors. We implore the governing bodies to ratify the Marrakesh Treaty so that this will enable special materials to start to be exchanged internationally, as well as sign in the Copyright Amendment Bill, knowing that it is not perfect in many ways, but is a work in progress for the future. 

As we from SAFREA would encourage all creatives to support our drive for adjustments of creative sectors.  

We also demand that the government should pay all royalties to those creatives where it has used their work in the past without compensating them.

The march was well organized with a representative turnout. All groups were in agreement that the Bill must be signed. SAFREA support the Bill in essence with reservations on certain sections. 

Thank you.

• Shaun Harris, Professional Photographer and SAFREA member

Education

The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the long-known inadequacies and restrictions in South Africa’s copyright law that negatively affect access to information, knowledge-sharing, and the provision of relevant teaching and research materials in our educational institutions. The law is 42 years old and totally outdated. It does have fair dealing and some limited provisions for education, libraries and archives but there are no exceptions for people with disabilities, and the law does not address the digital environment at all. 

This situation meant that access to hardcopy material, multi-media and archival collections in libraries and archives was totally closed off. Overnight, e-learning platforms became the virtual classroom for schools and tertiary institutions.  Suddenly institutions had to find funding to assist students with software, hardware, training, and mobile data costs to enable them to access their study material. 

One lecturer, who was unable to access the hard-copy book in the institution’s library, asked the publisher for permission to place sections of the e-book version on her institution’s password-protected e-learning platform. It would have given access to registered students for that course only, for a period of 6 weeks. The request was declined on the basis that the copying was not permitted under the licence.  So she wrote to the collective management organization (CMO) asking for assistance. But the CMO said they could not assist if permission had already been declined by the publisher!  Other lecturers also hit the permissions wall when publishers and CMOs also declined requests due to licence restrictions. Instead students were told to buy the e-books, even though they had already purchased the print version and just couldn’t access it during the lockdown. Obviously it was impossible for students to purchase the book again.

The Copyright Amendment Bill provisions would have been extremely helpful to all stakeholders in the COVID-19 lockdown, but especially to the library and educational sectors, and for people with disabilities. For example, the Bill would have supported the making of digital copies by libraries, and the use of audio-visual material for online learning. Fair use would have provided the legal flexibility needed by teachers, students and libraries seeking to maintain education and homeschooling during lockdown. And the provisions could not be taken away by licence terms.

It is crucial that Parliament addresses the constitutional concerns raised by the President expeditiously, astutely and transparently so that the Bill can finally be enacted for the benefit of all South Africans.

Full text: https://www.eifl.net/blogs/how-sas-copyright-bill-would-benefit-citizens-during-covid

• Denise R. Nicholson, Scholarly Communications Librarian, University of the Witwatersrand

SAGA

“The Performer’s Protection Amendment Bill and Copyright Amendment Bill promised to reform and modernise economic rights for South African actors and together, they would usher in a ‘new dawn’ for the audio-visual industry. The bills are linked for good reason too – while the former bill offers actors the right to earn fair royalties for the exploitation of their work on film and TV, the latter ensures that royalties would be calculated, collected and disbursed by regulated Collecting Societies. But political and commercial interests, represented by international film studios, film producer federations and publishing companies had other ideas…

These entities, together with their South African proxies launched a sustained and well-resourced lobby to derail the legislative process, even threatening to disinvest in the local production industry if the bills were signed into law. Actors were therefore both disappointed and dismayed by the president’s decision to return the bills to Parliament. Disappointed, because we are no closer to reforming the apartheid-era statutes that are still entrenched in the independent film/TV production sector. Dismayed, because it raises concerns that international commercial interests may have far more influence in South Africa’s sovereign law-making processes than they have a right to. 

If these international interests indeed exert such a disruptive influence, one may well ask if South African actors would offer a counterweight to this lobby and assert their support for the bills. It would be in the actors’ best interests for the bills to be signed into law, after all. It is the mark of a professional actor never to miss a cue, and through the South African Guild of Actors (SAGA), veteran actors Marah Louw, Thembi Mtshali, Abigail Kubheka, Nambitha Mpumlwana, Adrian Galley, Luversan Gerard and others have launched a well-timed campaign to focus the attention of our lawmakers on the moral and economic rights of actors. This campaign is focussed on the tragic plight of the late actor Henry Cele who portrayed a magnificent ‘Shaka Zulu’ in the 1985 TV series of the same name.

Henry Cele died in 2007, never having earned a cent of the estimated R5 billion the series earned in global revenue. This case of appalling exploitation and cynicism points directly to the need for equitable contracting terms and for fair royalties to be secured in statute and in actor contracts. It is our duty as South Africans who care for our cultural heritage to participate in the #RememberHenryCele campaign. Join us by supporting #FairRoyaltiesNow and #SigntheBills, and let us ensure that Henry Cele is remembered with the honour and dignity he deserves.”

• Jack Devnarain, SAGA Chairperson 

"It was an honour to have marched alongside the members of Blind SA to the Union Buildings to deliver the memorandum to the President. Sadly it was alongside them in a march that should never have been necessary. It has been said that the measure of a country is in how it treats its most vulnerable members. Each and every South African should be horrified and outraged at the treatment of the visually impaired citizens of our country - #BrailleIsNoCrime"

 - Luversan Gerard, SAGA

It is vitally important that we visibly stand together in our pursuit to have both the CAB and PPAB passed through parliament. It is incumbent on the whole creative industry to persuade the portfolio committee to liaise with the NCOP, in order for this process to be finalized. 

I think the march showed that we can come together, as communities and creatives, to fight for our rights, and we should not stop putting pressure on parliament until both the CAB and PPAB are passed!

• Nambitha Mpumlwana, CEO: Nambitha Projects, Actress and SAGA representative 

R2K

Our campaign is proud to have been part of this successful action. Even in difficult pandemic conditions, a significant number and variety of citizens were physically present, while many others observed online and via the media. We let our politicians know, as we always will, that we don't accept them taking orders from transnational business interests, at the expense of the South African majority.

• Michael Graaf, Acting Communication RIghts Organiser, R2K

As an activist of R2K, we welcome the energetic spirit of blindSa constituency and supporters from artists across South Africa with strong beliefs that Copyright Bill will address their challenges as citizens of RSA. 

As activists of R2K we will continually give support to the struggle of this nature, and change the lives of vulnerable citizens, disadvantage Communities on the access to information, Social Justice and those who demand accountability of state institutions, including the government. 

BlindSa and RecreateSa have provided a strong and wonderful relationship with R2K Campaign. Our Campaign is humbled to have been part of this successful protest. 

Even in so much dangerous pandemic situation, a significant number of people with activists heart came to inform our corrupt politicians that "they can see, but their mind is blind" and they emphasis that, we don't accept orders from leaders with dobias agenda's and devide South Africans in the interest of business with America.

• Bongani ka Mthembu, Provincial Coordinator of R2K Gauteng, Member of the Communication Rights Action Group. 

Blind SA march gave us an opportunity to send a strong message to our government specifically the ANC that truly The people shall and MUST govern. 

We are sick and tired of the continuous bullying tactics of imperialists. 

We will not allow the government to allow the marginalised groups to continuously suffer like they currently do in this country. 

The colonial law of fair dealing must go NOW .

# FAIR USE NOW 

And we send a strong message to the international multinationals that #Hands off our laws

-Unathi Ndiki, member of Recreate and R2K activist and artist

BlindSA

Blind SA assists visually impaired learners, students, teachers and lecturers who all require learning and teaching material in accessible format. Equally, there are blind creatives who need the provisions of the CAB in order to make a living and be economically independent.

Advocacy: Our advocacy function has been very active for many years pursuing inter alia equal access to publications and information.

We vigorously support the signing into law of the CAB.  More important even, because it affects every single one of the estimated 1.2 million persons with visual impairment in South Africa, we urgently need the copyright exemptions set out in section 19.D of the CAB to address our book famine.

Blind persons have access to only less than 0.5% of publications. A sighted person could borrow a book from a friend and read it, take out a book from a library and read it, go to a book shop, buy a book and read it; not so for a blind person: the book first has to be converted into some accessible format such as braille, audio or Daisy. This is a lengthy and costly process.

To convert an average novel of around 300 pages into braille would take approximately 28 days and would cost around R24000 to produce the master copy, or “template” as publishers refer to it. Very often such templates are already available abroad, but due to the fact that the CAB has not been signed into law, the old colonial Copyright Act of 1978 still applies which has no copyright exemptions which results in us not having access to those already existing templates and we then have to reinvent the wheel, reproduce what exists already at great expense of time and money. 

We believe that the 1978 Copyright Act is unconstitutional, as it discriminates against us in violating our right of equal access to publications.

Early in 2019 our hopes were raised again when Parliament and the National Council of Provinces approved the CAB and it was sent to the president for his signature. We believed that soon we would have access to hundreds of thousands of books which had been forbidden to us.  But the president sat on his hands. Month after month after month went by while the president did not react, being intimidated by the noise of those opposed to the Bill and the threat of the withdrawal of trade benefits by the US government. 

The bickering about the Bill continues. It is now with the Parliamentary Portfolio Committee. We are despondent. Every day’s delay, is a day longer that our rights are being violated.

We are stepping up our advocacy.

We marched to the Union Building on 10 December and handed over a memorandum and letters of support to the Presidency. Letters were in braille to impress upon the mind of the president the difficulty of not having access to the written word.

We have waited long enough! Please join the cause.

• Christo de Klerk, VICE PRESIDENT – BLIND SA