Section27 wants Ramaphosa to urgently sign Copyright Amendment Bill into law

JOHANNESBURG - Advocacy group Section27 held a picket at the Union Buildings on Friday to pressure the president to sign into law the Copyright Amendment Bill.

Passed by both houses of Parliament in February, the bill would allow blind or visually impaired people to turn published literary work into accessible formats like Braille, without requiring permission from the copyright holders. 

The bill came as a result of a Constitutional Court (ConCourt) ruling in September 2022 which ruled certain clauses of the 1978 Copyright Act unlawful.

The court gave an exemption to these clauses which expire on Saturday.

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Section27, which represented Blind SA in the ConCourt two years ago, said the 1978 Copyright Act placed an unfair burden on blind and visually impaired people to access books.

It said if President Cyril Ramaphosa does not sign the amendment bill by Saturday, that burden would be back.

Senior attorney at Section27, Demichelle Petherbridge, said the blind community in the country was suffering from a severe book famine.

“It’s the name given to the fact we have a severe shortage of books in accessible formats. Less than 5% of all published works are actually in formats that are accessible for persons that are blind or visually impaired, which means that they will especially be affected by this provision because if they would like to read anything beyond that 5% they need to convert that book into a format they can read themselves.”

Petherbridge said without the legislative protections in the amendment bill, blind and visually impaired people could be fined or imprisoned for converting books without explicit consent from the copyright holder.