Section27, a civil society organisation representing Blind SA and other interest groups, has given President Cyril Ramaphosa until today to sign the new Copyright Amendment Bill into law.
Section27 said by signing the bill, South Africa could join the Marrakesh Treaty, which would allow blind and visually impaired people access to hundreds of thousands of reading materials.
It said: “South Africa’s current Copyright Act (1978) currently makes it very difficult for people who are blind or visually impaired to convert published texts into accessible formats like braille, large-font, audio, the digitally accessible Information system (Daisy) or other accessible formats.
“This has resulted in a book famine for people who are blind or visually disabled, with approximately fewer than 0.5% of published works available in South Africa in accessible formats.”
Reacting to the Section27 call, the leader of Intellectual Property and Social Justice, Tebogo Sithathu, said their stance had not changed that there were sections of the current bill that remained problematic, and any hasty action by the president without re-looking at these problem areas would be detrimental to the creative industry.
“Our position has not changed from since the days of public consultation by government with our creative sector industry. We still maintain there are many aspects of the bill that remain problematic due the the infamous 'fair-use’ provision which we maintain ‘it is piracy glorified' as it would definitely disadvantage artists, authors and creators.
“The ANC administration needs to be honest and stop ignoring industry by bowing to pressure from the USA who will be the biggest beneficiaries of this bill should the president sign it in its current form.”
Sithathu said Ramaphosa should reconsider removing the fair-use provision before approving the bill.
“There is a need to remove or suspend the fair-use clause before the President can sign it as a compromise to allow for further engagements on this just like he has done with the Bela Bill
“We totally support that the blind people and those who are visually impaired should have access to braille material without delay and a plan is possible to allow for such. However, the president has an option enshrined in our jurisprudence to seek for an extension or refer the Copyright Amendment Bill to the Constitutional Court,“ Sithathu said.
According to Section27, the current apartheid era Copyright Act of 1978 infringes on the rights of persons with visual disabilities, in particular the rights to equality, dignity, basic and further education, freedom of expression, language and participation in the cultural life of one’s choice.
“One of the main problems with the current act is that it does not provide exceptions to copyrighted materials to allow persons to convert these published works into accessible formats such as braille, the Digitally Accessible Information System (Daisy), audio, large print or other suitable formats for persons with visual disabilities. This has resulted in a book famine for persons with visual disabilities, constituting unfair discrimination,” it said.
Attempts to get comment from the Office of the President on when he was likely to sign the bill into law had been unsuccessful at the time of going to print.
Saturday Star