ARTISTS are invited to make submissions on the Copyright Amendment Bill and the Performers’ Protection Bill.
Both bills were passed by the National Assembly and are now under consideration of the National Council of Provinces.
Chairman of the Select Committee on Trade and Industry, Economic Development, Small Business Development, Tourism, Employment and Labour, Mandla Rayi, said the copyright bill would allow for further limitations and exceptions regarding the reproduction of copyright works.
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“It will provide for sharing of royalties in copyright works. It will provide payment of royalties in respect of literary, musical, artistic and audiovisual works. It will provide for resale of royalty rights,” he said.
Mandla KaNozulu, executive producer of Showmax’s Umkhokha, said he was happy with the step and would study it closely.
“We welcome the call. We will be making both oral and written submissions. We will be studying both these bills and refer them to our practitioners for their opinion,” he said.
Jazz singer, Sbongile Mngoma, said the bill would ensure performers were protected and got money they were entitled to.
“We do need to make it South Africa-specific. We cannot afford to copy and paste other countries’ practices if they compromise us,” she said.
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Music producer and Trade Union for Musicians of South Africa’s, Gabi le Roux, said the new draft was closer to creating a balance between the interests of creators, owners and users.
“There are still risks around the wide interpretations of ‘fair use’. Unscrupulous usage by powerful tech platforms could easily use this as an avenue to avoid liability for distributing advertising revenue gained through uploads of copyrighted content,” he said.
