Copyright Law
November 23, 2009
Intellectual Property News and Interesting Facts
While copyright is legally accepted as coming into effect automatically upon the creation of the applicable work, the copyright law is rather extensive in order to govern what exactly is protected, who is considered the owner of the work and what is considered infringement.
Most importantly, for a piece of work to fall under protection of the copyright law in South Africa, it needs to meet certain requirements. In general, any original work made by a qualified person is eligible for copyright protection.
An original work means that the author must have created the work through the application of his or her own creativity and labour. A qualified person refers to any resident of South Africa or a Berne Convention country.
In addition, the author must have written down or recorded the creation in a material form for copyright to come into existence.
For any queries regarding copyright law, contact the leaders in intellectual property matters – Smit & Van Wyk Incorporated.
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