IAF, IFRRO, IPA and STM urge President Ramaphosa to withhold signing Copyright Amendment Bill

The major representatives of authors and publishers around the world, IAF, IPA and STM, and IFRRO, representing the collective management organisations in the text and image-based sector worldwide, are asking South Africa President Cyril Ramaphosa to withhold signing the Copyright Amendment Bill.

The reasons leading to the President’s referral of the Bill back to the National Assembly in 2020 included copyright exceptions that “may constitute arbitrary deprivation of property; may violate the right to freedom of trade, occupation and profession, and may be in conflict with” international treaties to which South Africa is a contracting party or a signatory. A long process followed the President’s decision, but the defective provisions have remained unaddressed, despite semantic non-substantive changes. Writers and the whole publishing and book industry stand united against an ill-constructed Bill that jeopardizes South Africa’s literary diversity and educational content production.