Copyright Law changes will make writers poorer

Copyright Law changes will make writers poorer: ANFASA article on City Press

Copyright Law

Mon Copyright Law ica Seeber recently wrote an article that was published in the city press on the 9th November 2018, here is a snippet of the article. Click on the line at the end of the snippet to read the rest of the article.

For the past few years, the Copyright Amendment Bill has been in development.The Academic and Non-Fiction Authors’ Association of SA (Anfasa) has been active all this time; has spoken about authors’ rights at conferences; participated in countless consultative meetings, and has sent detailed submissions to the department of trade and industry. Last year, an Anfasa delegation went to Parliament to present the case of authors to the parliamentary portfolio committee on trade and industry.

Nothing we have said has had any effect. The powers that be are determined that copyright should be driven by “access” – that learning and knowledge production will be stunted unless written works may be copied and “re-versioned” (digitised, translated or re-worked into another form) without the author’s consent.

The history of the bill began when a delegation of musicians went to the president to complain that they were “dying in poverty” as their music royalties were not being paid because of outdated copyright legislation. The president listened sympathetically and set up a commission to investigate and make recommendations for changes to the Copyright Act. The idea was to improve the law for creators – specifically for musicians, but also for authors of written works and for visual artists. But this ran into strong opposition from those who wished to disseminate books and journal articles freely to pupils and students under the principle of“access”.The Copyright Amendment Bill allows works intended “for education” to be copied without permission or…continue.

 

Law changes will make writers poorer: ANFASA article on City Press