The event will showcase how important copyright is to the vitality and growth of our creative industries (including our music, publishing, literary and dramatic arts and film and entertainment industries) and to highlight how many of government’s recent proposals to amend our copyright legislation may cause harm to the rights of our already vulnerable creatives.
Not only would many of the changes move SA further adrift of international best practices, but it would also impact negatively on the way that future commercial deals would look for our authors, composers, artists, performers, composers, etc., especially on the international scene.
While the digital age has brought countless new opportunities for our creatives to generate new and original content and to commercialise their works on a global scale, it also brought about boundless ways in which their works can be reproduced, used, accessed and distributed by a rampantly growing consumer base that, for a large part, expects or demands to have free access to copyright-protected works, especially if it can be found in the digital space.
Without strong copyright and other legal protections and mechanisms that enable our creatives and rights holders to protect and to securely commercialise their works, our creative sectors are at risk.
The aim of the above-mentioned gathering is to raise awareness of the critical issues posed by the Copyright Amendment Bill for our creatives and our industries which rely on copyright to function and grow new business opportunities for our creatives (locally and globally).
The conference is presented by the SA Copyright Alliance and hosted by the UP Centre for IP Law (which is sponsored by Adams & Adams law firm).
