COPYRIGHT AMENDMENT BILL: STATUS UPDATE

COPYRIGHT AMENDMENT BILL: STATUS UPDATE

• 11 January 2024
• Parliament
• SA Legal Academy

In a recent TechCentral article entitled, ‘Mickey Mouse and South Africa’s battle over copyright’, journalist Sandra Lawrence claims that the Copyright Amendment Bill – ‘thrashed out by a select committee in March last year’ – ‘has now been sent to Ramaphosa for signing’. This is noting that it was ‘adopted’ by the National Council of Provinces in September 2023.

In fact, several changes proposed by the NCOP Committee on Trade, Industry, Economic Development, Small Business, Tourism & Employment and Labour (referred to in the article as the select committee), reflected in the Copyright Amendment Bill’s most recently revised version and adopted by the NCOP in September 2023 must be endorsed by the National Assembly before the Bill is deemed to have been passed by both Houses and can then be signed into law.

With that in mind, the revised Bill passed by the NCOP was sent to the National Assembly’s Trade, Industry & Competition Committee in September 2023 for concurrence. It has yet to be considered.

A National Assembly committee briefing on changes made by the NCOP committee and passed by the House was arranged for 14 November 2023 but cancelled at less than 24 hours’ notice. At the time, the committee was expected to meet a week later to decide whether or not to endorse the NCOP’s changes. This arrangement also fell off the official parliamentary meetings list.

However, according to a Parliamentary Monitoring Group (PMG) report on the committee’s 6 December 2023 planning meeting for this year’s first term, 6 February 2024 has been earmarked for the briefing. It remains to be seen if this meeting takes place.

• TechCentral article
• Copyright Amendment Bill’s revised (‘F’) version
• screenshot of PMG report

Published by SA Legal Academy Policy Watch

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