Copyright Review Commission Report - ICT Law and Regulation ...

15.1.3. The Copyright Tribunal’s procedures are cumbersome and its structure ill-suited to deal with the cases likely tocome before it. Detailed recommendations are set out in paragraph 3.3.11 of Chapter 3.15.1.4. The Copyright Act must be amended to allow rights holders (as well as users) to engage the Copyright Tribunal indisputes about the appropriate tariffs to be applied. At present it is only in respect of needletime that the rightsowners (as opposed to the users) are able to do this. This encourages delays. See paragraph 3.3.10 of Chapter 3.15.1.5. The Acts should require certain users to provide full information (to be defined in the Regulations) to collectingorganisations so that rights owners entitled to payment can be readily identified. See paragraph 3.3.13 of Chapter3.15.1.6. The Acts should be amended to provide that needletime be divided equally between the owner(s) of the copyrightin the sound recordings and the owner(s) of the neighbouring right to needletime. See paragraph 3.3.8 of Chapter3.15.1.7. The CRC believes that an overall impact study should be conducted to assess whether it is appropriate for SouthAfrica to ratify and implement the WIPO Internet treaties. See paragraph 4.2.9 of Chapter 4.15.1.8. The ‘private use’ exceptions must be expanded and adapted for the digital era to include, for example, formatshifting and ensure that the law is in accordance with the expectations of reasonable persons. This is important inorder to persuade members of the public to respect copyright law.15.1.9. The Copyright Act must be amended to include a section modelled on that in the US Copyright Act providing forthe reversion of assigned rights 25 years after the copyright came into existence. (The drafters of the section musthave regard for proposals currently under discussion in the US for an amendment of the section to overcomedifficulties encountered in practice.) Such an amendment will go far to relieve the plight of composers whoseworks still earn large sums of money that are going to the assignees of the composers’ rights long after theassignees (or their predecessors) have recouped their initial investment and made substantial profits, in excess ofthose anticipated when the original assignment was taken. The period proposed is shorter, based on the fact thatthe local copyright duration is shorter than the American one. See paragraph 10.12.10 of Chapter 10.15.1.10. The Copyright Act must be amended so as to provide for the office of an ombud for the industry, whose functionsand operational rules should be spelt out in regulations. In this regard, the recommendations made by the MITTshould be implemented.15.1.11. The definitions of local music contained in the EC Act should be enlarged. See Table 26 (g) of Chapter11.15.1.12. The Copyright Act should be amended to adopt the right ‘to communicate the work to the public’ and the ‘makingavailable’ right as two new exclusive rights of copyright owners. The Performers’ Protection Act should also beamended to provide the performers with the right to make their performances available to the public and to createmoral right for performers. See paragraph 4.8.2 of Chapter 4.- 102 -