IP Public Lecture 2015 – Copyright as an Agent of Social Justice

THIS EVENT IS NOW CLOSED Watch the video of the lecture below. The annual Intellectual Property Law Public Lecture was presented by Prof Owen Dean on 6 October 2015 on the topic Copyright as an Agent of Social Justice – perspective on the Lion Sleeps Tonight case.  To read more about the lecture click here.  

Unscrambling the Curate’s Egg – Full Review of the Copyright Amendment Bill

In an earlier article posted on this blog, the Copyright Amendment Bill published in Government Gazette no. 39028, dated 27 July, 2915, was described as a curate’s egg, i.e something that is fundamentally bad but in principle has some good aspects. The view was expressed that the Bill could not be cured by piecemeal amendments, […]

A Diamond in the Rough – Technology and the Copyright Amendment Act

The Copyright Amendment Draft Bill (GG No 39028, 27 July 2015) (‘the Bill’) is by all accounts a grave misfortune and a study in amateur law-making. Enough has been said on this point to make it clear that the DTI has tripped at the first hurdle and that a re-evaluation is the only hope of […]

DTI Dishes Up A Hopeless Curate’s Egg

The figure of speech used in describing something as a “curate’s egg” derives from a cartoon by G du Maurier published in the British humorous magazine Punch in November 1895. It depicts a meek curate, faced with a bad egg at the Bishop’s breakfast table, commenting that it is partly good. In other words it […]

Let’s Pray for Mediocrity: Another Case of Legislative Diarrhoea

On 27 July 2015 the Department of Trade and Industry (“the DTI”) published the Copyright Amendment Bill 2015 (the “Amendment Bill”) in the Government Gazette, asking for public comment within 30 days from such date. Given the number of issues contained in the Amendment Bill that needs to be addressed, it will be almost impossible […]

Intellectual Property and the Constitution

Section 2 of the Constitution of the Republic of South Africa, 1996, provides that it is the supreme law of the country and that any law inconsistent with it is invalid. This provision creates the necessity to interpret the Copyright Act in a manner consistent with the Constitution at the risk of the Act, or […]

Needletime Royalties: At last, some case law

You wait ages for a reported judgment concerning “needletime” royalties pursuant to section 9A of the Copyright Act, and then two come along at approximately the same time. There were two reported decisions, one, an enquiry by the Copyright Tribunal, and, the other, a judgment by the Supreme Court of Appeal following an appeal from […]

Literal Extortion

The verb “extort” means “obtain (money, a promise, a concession, etc.) from a reluctant person by threat, force, importunity, etc.)” The noun form, “extortion”, means “the act or an act of extorting money etc.” (The New Shorter Oxford English Dictionary published by Clarendon Press, 1993). Requiring someone to pay copyright royalties for a manner of […]

Government’s reflections on the world of Intellectual Property

INTRODUCTION Have you ever basked in the warm sunshine of a glorious summer’s day, in daydreaming mode, and allowed your mind simply to wander at random? You start with a thought, you turn it over in your mind, and then a point is reached where you go off at a tangent and muse over some […]

Happy Birthday in Wonderland

Warner/Chappel Music, a music publishing company in the United States of America, claims and exerts copyright in the ubiquitous song “Happy Birthday to You”. It requires that royalty payments should be made to it each and every time this song is sung or used in public. This is a startling proposition as most people probably […]