CAMPAIGN FOR THE INTRODUCTION OF THE PUBLIC LENDING RIGHT IN SOUTH AFRICA

The Public Lending Right (PLR) system is a cultural benefit that gives authors the legal right to receive payment for the free lending of their books by public libraries. It has proved to be a vital form of remuneration and has promoted the literature and cultural industries in countries that apply it, mainly because it acknowledges the personal development of both published and aspiring authors, and rewards them financially allowing them to sustain full time writing careers. ANFASA endorses PLR and the importance of its introduction in South Africa and has commenced a campaign for its introduction in South Africa. Read more

COPYRIGHT LEKGOTLA ON TRANSLATION RIGHTS - THE CAPE TOWN BOOK FAIR 2009

ANFASA in association with the Publishers' Association of South Africa (PASA) hosted the third Copyright Lekgotla - a copyright symposium - at the Cape Town Book Fair 2009. This symposium is a rightholders event dealing with a very specific issue relating to copyright and the theme for this year was Translation Rights . It involved a panel made up of authors, translators, publishers and coypright attorney discussing how they deal with translations within their respective fields. Read more

GOOGLE BOOK SEARCH SETTLEMENT - YOUR RIGHTS AS AN AUTHOR

On 14 December 2004, Google announced its plans to digitise books in library holdings in the U.S and make them available to all users of Google's Book Search Programme. By 20 September 2005, the Authors Guild filed a class action lawsuit against Google for copyright infringement committed when scanning in-copyright books and making snippets of these works available without the rightholders' permission and on 19 October 2005 the Association of American Publishers (representing 5 publishers) also filed a lawsuit on similar grounds. However, on 28 October, Google the Association of American Publishers and the Authors Guild announced that they had reached an agreement to settle the two seperate cases. Read more

THE INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY LAWS AMENDMENT BILL - UPDATE

The current concern for all authors is the draft Intellectual Property Laws Amendment Bill, 2007 (“the Amendment Bill”) which is aimed at providing a legislative framework for the recognition and protection of traditional knowledge within the existing IP system. While there is certainly merit in recognising the value of traditional knowledge and ensuring that the originators of traditional knowledge share in its commercialisation, the Amendment Bill is fraught with problems and potentially has detrimental consequences for traditional knowledge holders and authors generally. Read more