Title: A consultative, development-focussed Copyright Review (South Africa)
Date (published): May 2010
Date (accessed): 20/06/2010
Type of information: petition
Language: English
On-line access: yes (HTML)
Abstract:
The National Consumer Forum (NCF) and The African Commons Project (TACP), two registered Section 21 companies operating within South Africa, on behalf of South African consumers hereby request the Minister to urgently consider a consultative, transparent review of the current Copyright Act.

The Act, initially drafted more than 32 years ago, should be reviewed in light of the digital innovations that have occurred within the last three decades which have dramatically altered the way we create, share, distribute and use information materials and cultural products.

Title: The Economics of Copyright and Digitisation: A Report on the Literature and the Need for Further Research
Author: Christian Handke
Pages: 103 pp.
Publisher: Strategic Advisory Board for Intellectual Property Policy (SABIP)
Date (published): 03/06/2010
Date (accessed): 14/06/2010
Type of information: report
Language: English
On-line access: yes (pdf)
Abstract:
The Strategic Advisory Board for Intellectual Property Policy (SABIP) has commissioned this report in order to inform its research agenda. The report undertakes a critical overview of the theoretical and empirical economic literature on copyright and unauthorised copying. On the basis of this literature, this report also identifies the salient issues for copyright policy in the process of digitisation, and formulates specific research questions that should be addressed to inform copyright policy.
Economists’ theoretical work on copyright has generated a general framework in which to study the effects of copyright on social welfare. The literature identifies a number of costs and benefits associated with copyright. Digitisation is likely to affect the balance struck by existing copyright arrangements and empirical research is needed to capture the implications for the desirable level of copyright protection. So far, empirical studies provide partial answers at best but they may provide useful templates for further research. Progress seems possible, especially if better data becomes available.

This report highlights two issues which are in particular need of further research in order to inform copyright policy:
1. How does digital copying affect the supply of copyright works?
2. Does the copyright system entail obstacles to desirable aspects of technological transition?

Title: Open Access and Open knowledge production processes: Lessons from CODESRIA
Author: Francis B. Nyamnjoh
Pages: 6 pp.
ISSN: 2077-7205
e-ISSN: 2077-7213
Source: The African Journal of Information and Communication, Issue No 10 (2009/2010)
Publisher: Learning Information Networking and Knowledge (LINK) Centre, Graduate School of Public and Development Management, University of the Witwatersrand
Date (published): 25/02/2010
Date (accessed): 28/04/2010
Type of information: peer-reviewed article
Language: English
On-line access: yes (pdf)
Abstract:
It is common in discussions of open access to limit the issue to publications and dissemination. This conflates accessibility with recognition and representation, and supposes that competing and conflicting knowledge systems and ideas would be equally available and affordable if room were created for multiple channels of accessibility. Such enthusiasm and euphoria, while understandable, do not adequately account for the prevalent power relations that structure knowledge production into interconnecting hierarchies at local and global levels.
CODESRIA has some lessons to draw on from its experience of the past 37 years – lessons about the need to privilege and prioritise recognition and representation of the perspectives, epistemologies, and contextual and methodological diversity that inform knowledge production globally and locally; and lessons about the need to widen our understanding and discussion of ‘open access’ to go beyond just enabling access to knowledge and research results through a multiplicity of dissemination possibilities. It is important to discuss opening access up to different races, places, spaces, cultures, classes, generations, disciplines and fields of study.
This review presents CODESRIA, and its ever-evolving publications and dissemination policy, as a possible model to inform and inspire institutions interested in a comprehensive idea of open access in an interconnected world of local and global hierarchies, where producing and consuming difference is part and parcel of everyday life.

Title: Copyright and education in Africa: Lessons on African copyright and access to knowledge
Authors: Tobias Schonwetter, Jeremy de Beer, Dick Kawooya and Achal Prabhala
Pages: 16 pp.
ISSN: 2077-7205
e-ISSN: 2077-7213
Source: The African Journal of Information and Communication, Issue No 10 (2009/2010)
Publisher: Learning Information Networking and Knowledge (LINK) Centre, Graduate School of Public and Development Management, University of the Witwatersrand
Date (published): 25/02/2010
Date (accessed): 28/04/2010
Type of information: peer-reviewed article
Language: English
On-line access: yes (pdf)
Abstract:
The African Copyright and Access to Knowledge (ACA2K) project is a pan-African research network of academics and researchers from law, economics and the information sciences, spanning Egypt, Ghana, Kenya, Morocco, Mozambique, Senegal, South Africa and Uganda. Research conducted by the project was designed to investigate the extent to which copyright is fulfilling its objective of facilitating access to knowledge, and learning materials in particular, in the study countries. The hypotheses tested during the course of research were that: (a) the copyright environments in study countries are not maximising access to learning materials, and (b) the copyright environments in study countries can be changed to increase access to learning materials. The hypotheses were tested through both doctrinal legal analysis and qualitative interview-based analysis of practices and perceptions among relevant stakeholders. This paper is a comparative review of some of the key findings across the eight countries.
An analysis of the legal research findings in the study countries indicates that national copyright laws in all eight ACA2K study countries provide strong protection, in many cases exceeding the terms of minimum protection demanded by international obligations. Copyright limitations and exceptions to facilitate access to learning materials are not utilised as effectively as they could be, particularly relating to the digital environment. Distance learning, the needs of disabled people, the needs of students, teachers, educational institutions, libraries and archives are inadequately addressed. To the extent that copyright laws address the Internet and other information and communication technologies (ICTs), they do so primarily in a manner that further restricts access to learning materials. In summary, national copyright frameworks in the study countries are not geared for maximal access to learning materials, and are in need of urgent attention.
An analysis of qualitative research findings, gathered from the field in stakeholder interviews, suggests that a substantial gap exists between copyright law and copyright practice in each country studied. Many users who are aware of the concept of copyright are unable or unwilling to comply with it or to work within the user rights it offers because of their socioeconomic circumstances. In everyday practice, with respect to learning materials, vast numbers of people act outside legal copyright structures altogether, engaging (knowingly or unknowingly) in infringing practices in order to gain the access they need to learning materials.
In conclusion, evidence from the ACA2K project suggests that the copyright environments in the study countries can and must be improved by reforms that will render the copyright regimes more suitable to local developing country realities. Without such reform, equitable and non-infringing access to learning materials will remain an elusive goal in these countries.

Title: Reaction to the Gender Findings from Africa’s Access to Knowledge Research
Author: Kathleen Diga
Source: genderIT.org

Date (published): 22/02/2010
Date (accessed): 13/03/2010
Type of information: blog post
Language: English
On-line access: yes (HTML)
Abstract:
GenderIT.org writer and a Research Officer at Canada`s International Development Research Centre, Kathleen Diga tracks the journey of the African Copyright & Access to Knowledge (ACA2K)research network to better understand the nature of African national copyright environments and their impact on equal opportunities for all citizens to access information, particularly in the realm of education. The author argues that the ultimate development goal of copyright law is to afford equal access to educational learning materials regardless of race, ethnicity, gender, disability or age. The law must be flexible in order to recognize existing or potential discrimination against vulnerable groups. For example income constraints are likely to discriminate against women more than men in efforts to access educational materials. It is a follow up to a previous GenderIT.org article, University women struggle for knowledge access in Africa.[1]

ACA2K's development research in eight African countries: South Africa, Mozambique, Kenya, Egypt, Ghana, Uganda, Senegal and Morocco, reflects on empirical evidence in order to find ways to ensure improved and equal opportunities for all citizens to access information, particularly in the realm of education. The project team investigated whether copyright laws in the study countries are designed in a way that is likely to help or hinder access to materials, particularly for university use, and whether in practice such laws are being followed -- or can realistically be followed given the varying contexts African learners face.

Title: Challenges of communal copyright: Traditional and indigenous knowledge
Author: Sonia Randhawa
Source: GenderIT.org
Date (published): 09/04/2009
Date (accessed): 17/12/2009
Type of information: bog post
Language: English
On-line access: yes (HTML)
Abstract:
Copyright and patents legislation has spread rapidly over the past century. This has a particular impact on indigenous women and the holders of traditional knowledge, as copyright ignores the possibility that knowledge can be held communally and has definitions of knowledge that exclude information held in a spiritual context. In this article, GenderIT writer Sonia Randhawa examines how women's lives in traditional and indigenous societies have been affected by the spread of copyright.