What constitutes copyright infringement?Making photocopies for private use is NOT an infringement of copyright. Copying a public speech or a lecture does NOT constitute infringement. No infringement results if work is acknowledged when one is copying or citing from another author’s work....
Copyright does NOT have to be registered in South Africa. Copyright in South Africa, like in most other countries, differs from other forms of intellectual property in that it is not a right that needs to be registered (except in the USA). Unlike patents, trade marks or registered designs,...
Public domain works refers to intellectual property that is not owned by anyone. The term indicates that these properties are therefore "public", and available for anyone to use. The public domain can be defined in contrast to copyright, trademarks or patents. Furthermore, the laws of various...
It is not necessary to formally submit copyright applications in order to receive copyright protection. Copyright exists automatically in force of creation. In other words, as soon as the qualifying work is written or recorded on some physical medium, its author is...
Copyright attorneys will tell you that copyright in South Africa, as in many other countries, does not need to be registered. Unlike patents, trademarks and designs, the rights associated with copyright rest in the author of a work once the work is created in a material form. The...
Smit & Van Wyk is an intellectual property law firm located in South Africa. Our copyright attorneys have experience dealing with copyright and trademark related issues. With advances in technology, copyright infringement is increasing, so our copyright attorneys are not only able to...
Copyright is just one of the four divisions that fall under the general heading of Intellectual Property, and there are South African attorneys who have had special training in the subject and will be only too happy to advise you on the subject. The four general headings that fall under this...
It is possible to copyright films in South Africa under the Copyright Act of 1978, because any cinematograph film or storage, fixation, and production such as signalling of data to produce the work fall under the protection. This means that the soundtrack of the movie, the broadcasting thereof,...
What is Copyright? A copyright is an exclusive right granted to an author of original work for a limited period of time. For a work to be eligible for copyright protection, it must be original and be reduced to material form. In South Africa all these works are automatically protected by copyright...
Copyright does NOT need to be registered in South Africa. It is not possible to register copyright photographs in South Africa, unlike other forms of intellectual property, copyright vests in the photographer once the photo has been created in material form, but in South Africa the person who...
In December 2013 one of the first arrests were made in South Africa for copyright infringing file-sharing online. Majedien Machos Norton was convicted of criminal copyright infringement for posting a copy of a local movie, Four Corners, on Pirate Bay. The 29 year old man accused of...
It is not possible to register copyright in South Africa. Copyright is different from other forms of Intellectual Property because copyright does NOT have to be registered in South Africa. Once the work is created in material form it is instantly protected by copyright law...
Copyright protects original musical works. Unlike patents, trademarks and designs, the rights associated with copyright rest in the author of a work once the work is created in a material form. It allows an original work to be considered a property that is owned by someone. No...
Copyright Law in South Africa is governed by the Copyright Act of 1978 and its amendments. CIPC and DTI oversee copyright in the country. As a member of the Berne Convention and TRIPS Agreement, copyright works protected in South Africa are also protected in other member states of the above....
Copyright registration is unnecessary for articles or work on the Internet since copyright is automatically implied the moment that an original creative idea takes tangible form. As such one doesn’t have to register website content. The problem with this is that many web users mistake content on...
Orphan works cause a problem For Libraries & Museums. Orphan works are those copyright protected works for which the copyright holders or authors cannot be reached. Even though the name of the copyright holder may be known, contact information may be lacking. If the copyright owner doesn’t...
A database right is a type of intellectual property right which came into being in 1996 in the European Union. No registration is required for a database right. Just as copyright it is automatically assigned the moment the work protected is in a recorded format. The period for protection of a...
Moral rights refer to rights under copyright laws that protect the rights of the creators of the work. These rights fall within the scope of civil law and include rights such as the right to have a work published under a specific name or anonymous, and the right to have the integrity of the work...
Related rights as a term is used to describe rights in copyright not connected to the real author of the work. The related rights can for instance, have bearing on the rights of broadcasters and performers. Related rights also refer to the protection of the filmmaker and database creator’s rights....
The phrase of Authors’ Rights refers to copyright laws which protect the rights of authors. Although the term “authors’ rights” is used it can mean the artist, architect, musician, songwriter, scriptwriter and thus any person responsible for creation of the work. Authors’ rights include the...