The South African Music Industry Council (Samic), an umbrella body that represents
the collective interests of key organisations in the music industry, is not happy with the proposed Amendment Bills.
According to Samic, the proposed alignments are of the Copyright Amendment Bill and Performers’ Protection Amendment Bill with international treaty obligations.
The controversial piece of legislation has now been passed by the National Assembly and has been sent to the president for assent. It is now in the final leg of a second parliamentary process that could see it passed this year.
Negative, devastating impact on artists
The proposed amendments to the bills will have a negative, devastating impact on all South African musicians and the whole industry. The impact of these bills will lead to diminishing of opportunities for artists and job losses in the industry.
In a statement, Samic claims that small and medium-sized record companies will not be able to invest in new artists and recordings. It said this will happen if the Amendment Bill is passed.
“This will reduce the number of new recordings by South African Artists. It will lead to fewer opportunities for South African songwriters. Music producers, and sound engineers will also struggle to have their work become a reality. This will lead to a loss of income in royalties for Artists, producers, and songwriters.
The live performance industry will also suffer a huge blow as fewer performances take place. This will be due to the impact of ‘fair use’ clause. More especially, to our industry,” reads the statement.
Growth and investment
Samic believes that the bills would negatively impact the growth and investment in the South African recording music industry. That’s if the bills were implemented in their current form.
Samic has made a few recommendations which include:
Section 39 includes several provisions that deprive artists and producers of their freedom to contract and extend Ministerial powers to regulate private contractual arrangements. These provisions seriously and without justification interfere with the freedom of contract and should be deleted.
Substantial risk
Section 12A should introduce an open-ended and broad US-style “fair use” exception into South Africa’s copyright law. The law causes a substantial risk to the SA creative sector rather than providing it with any tangible benefit.
The importation of the broad US-style “fair use” exception in the Copyright Amendment Bill must be resisted. It would undermine the protection of the South African creative community.
This will result in significant legal uncertainty. It will also benefit mainly large foreign companies seeking to use South African works for free.
