Following its comprehensive review and comments submitted on the 2015, 2017 and 2018 versions of the Copyright Amendment Bill, the Chair of IP law has again submitted comments specifically pertaining to the copyright exceptions in the Amendment Bill. The full text of the Chair’s comments is available for download here. Download comments
We have all been to fun fairs. A fun fair is a facility set up in a vacant space, usually of temporary duration, devoted to providing entertainment to those who frequent it. There are ferris wheels, merry-go-rounds, helter skelters, tunnels of horrors, dodgem cars, roller coasters and the like. There are also stalls of one […]
Copyright is a system which grants creatives (i.e. writers, artists, composers, film-makers, record producers and the like) certain exclusive rights to their works which enable those works to be commercially exploited for financial reward. Creatives are thus empowered to make a living out of their works, which in turn is an incentive to make more […]
Every golfer has had the experience of duffing a shot – driving the ball straight into a water hazard – and, having incurred a penalty stroke, hitting a perfect drive straight down the middle of the fairway at the second attempt. This has given rise to the golfing adage: Confucius says hit second shot first! […]
INTRODUCTION The New Shorter Oxford English Dictionary gives the following as a meaning of the word “friend”: “A person who wishes another, a cause etc., well; a sympathizer, helper, patron…” Carole King, the famous songwriter/performer, gives a good description of the characteristics of a friend in her iconic song, You’ve Got a Friend. The drafters […]
INTRODUCTION Blind people are at a distinct disadvantage and face serious challenges when it comes to reading the written word. They need written text to be rendered in braille or in electronic form to permit a text-to-speech functionality with easy navigation across the text. Unfortunately, such adapted-for-disability-utility versions of written text are in short supply […]
Introduction The South African Constitutional Court has ruled that the term “property” in the Section 25 of the Constitution covers not only land but also all forms of property including intellectual property (i.e. patents, designs, copyright trade marks and the like). In the event that, as proposed, this section is amended to allow property to […]
Prof Dean was the guest on Azania Mosaka’s Masterclass series on Radio 702 to discuss the real story of Mbube, recently retold in the Netflix docu-drama “The Lion’s Share”. Listen to the podcast of the masterclass here (click the images below). If you are not yet familiar with the basic facts, below is a short […]
“Your mandate is to find a way, and to do everything possible, to enable the children of Solomon Linda, the composer of a song called MBUBE, which later evolved into the international hit song THE LION SLEEPS TONIGHT, to derive some financial benefit from the considerable revenues generated by the popularity of THE LION SLEEPS […]
In this special World IP Day article, Prof Owen Dean revisits the theme of IP rights protection for sporting events in South African law, with a focus on the developments and the Cricket World Cup 2019 as an example. Introduction Major sports are big business and vast sums of money are involved in staging […]
