[6] Initially, after the creation of the Union of South Africa in 1910, the copyright laws of the four formerly-independent provinces continued unchanged.
It has been amended several times, most notably in 1992 to make computer programs a distinct class of protected work, and in 1997 to bring it into line with the TRIPS Agreement.
In September 2021, the Gauteng High Court that the 1978 Copyright Act is unconstitutional because it does not give adequate freedom for blind and visually impaired readers to translate a work into Braille or other accessible formats, and hence discriminates against people with visual impairment.
The plaintiff, the nonprofit organisation Blind SA, estimated that fewer than 0.5% of published books are available in Braille.
The Minister of Trade, Industry and Competition criticised the proposed remedy from the 2022 ruling as violating separation of powers.
For sound recordings, broadcasts, programme-carrying signals and published editions, it is fifty years from first publication or transmission.
Section 21(1)(c) states: "(c) Where a person commissions the taking of a photograph, the painting or drawing of a portrait, the making of a gravure, the making of a cinematograph film or the making of a sound recording and pays or agrees to pay for it in money or money's worth, and the work is made in pursuance of that commission, such person shall, subject to the provisions of paragraph (b), be the owner of any copyright subsisting therein by virtue of section 3 or 4.
The word "dealing" means the same as "use" -- it applies to any use of a work that falls within the section's permitted purposes as long as that use is "fair."
Section 12(1) of the Act states:"12.- (1) Copyright shall not be infringed by any fair dealing with a literary or musical work-
In addition to the general fair dealing right, South Africa has a number of specific limitations and exceptions.
"[10] Section 15(1) states: "15(1) The copyright in an artistic work shall not be infringed by its inclusion in a cinematograph film or a television broadcast or transmission in a diffusion service, if such inclusion is merely by way of background, or incidental, to the principal matters represented in the film, broadcast or transmission.
A diffusion service is defined in section 1(1) as "a telecommunication service of transmissions consisting of sounds, images, signs or signals, which takes place over wires or other paths provided by material substance and intended for reception by specific members of the public; and diffusion shall not be deemed to constitute a performance or a broadcast or as causing sounds, images, signs or signals to be seen or heard; and where sounds, images, signs or signals are displayed or emitted by any receiving apparatus to which they are conveyed by diffusion in such manner as to constitute a performance or a causing of sounds, images, signs or signals to be seen or heard in public, this shall be deemed to be effected by the operation of the receiving apparatus."
[21] The Report recommended that the law be amended to protect the “needle time” rights of performers whose music is broadcast, that a right of communication to the public be adopted, that unfair contracts be regulated, that excessive costs and unfair practices of collective management organizations be controlled, that copyrights revert to the creator after 25 years, and that the Copyright Tribunal be streamlined.
Equally, other developing countries have shown that they enforce strictly copyright regime and their resources (finance, police, border policing, restrictive internet/technological devices), but they are unable to quantify whether the costs of enforcement outweigh economic benefits that flow from the copyright-based industries.
There are treaties or conventions that give nations flexibilities in copyright to allow copying, in particular for education and personal use.
It is submitted that an inevitable impact of stronger protection and enforcement in terms of the TRIPS Agreement leads to reducing access to knowledge-related products in developing countries, thus poor people are exposed to damaging consequences.
South Africa internet users must be entitled to fair use rights such as making and distributing copies from electronic sources in reasonable numbers for educational and research purposes and using reasonable excerpts in commentary and criticism.”[22]An assessment of the Intellectual Property Policy was commissioned for the Department of Trade Industry, conducted by Genesis Analytics,[23] The report advocated for the incorporation of a general fair use provision, allowances for the utilisation of whole works for teaching without limitations to the types and forms of that utilisation, extending the copyright exceptions to all types of education, and removing restrictions on the number of copies for educational purposes that can be made of a work.