Chamber calls for clarity on copyright bill

Ambiguities and the lack of clarity in the definition of key concepts in the Copyright Amendment Bill needed to be sorted out in the interests of foreign investment, the American Chamber of Commerce (Amcham) argued in Parliament on Friday.

The chamber made a submission to Parliament’s trade and industry committee during the third day of public hearings, which involved presentations by a wide range of stakeholders from filmmakers to lawyers, broadcasters, print media, librarians and performing and recording associations.

Amcham raised concern over undefined terms such as “user”, “performer” and “producer” and how they were to be applied in the provisions of the bill where they were used.

Attorney Herman Blignaut from law firm Spoor & Fisher submitted that the amendments giving users, performers and producers rights to royalties were wrong in law as only owners of copyright were entitled to claim royalties. It was incorrect, he said, to give users and performers the right to transfer copyright when they did not own it in the first place.

Amcham and other presenters also raised concern over the lack of clarity on what funding by the state meant in the context of a provision in the bill that the copyright of state-funded works would vest with the state rather than the creator of a work.

“Foreign investment will not enter a country where there is a risk their intellectual property rights will not be protected or [if] there is a risk associated with the acquisition of such rights from South African service providers,” the chamber said.

“Foreign investment requires certainty and predictability with respect to the legislative framework in which they invest in order to understand and manage risk.”

The Recording Industry of SA (Risa), which represents independent record companies, appreciated that the bill sought to modernise SA’s copyright legislation but said some provisions would have a negative effect on the recording industry “and undermine the commercial basis for investment by record labels in artists”.

What was fundamental for the industry, Risa said, was that recording companies had the exclusive right to communicate a sound recording to the public, whether by radio or the internet, as this allowed record companies to derive revenue by these means. Risa argued that the bill limited this right in a manner that was “not sustainable for the industry”.

Risa opposed the bill’s proposal for royalties to be shared with parties other than the performer and the producer of a sound recording, as well as the proposed limitation on the ability of recording companies to license the use of material by the digital market, which it said represented an increasing share of its revenues.