Section27 urges President Ramaphosa to sign Copyright Amendment Bill

Civil society organisation Section27, has launched a social media campaign urging President Cyril Ramaphosa to sign the Copyright Amendment Bill into law by Saturday, as required by a Constitutional Court order in 2022.

The Copyright Amendment Bill will allow people who are blind or visually impaired, to convert published works into accessible formats without requiring the permission of the copyright holder.

Fatima Laher is a candidate attorney at Section 27, “It takes 28- days for a book to be transferred into Braille so you can just imagine the admin involved, just to get access to reading material in an accessible format. So, what the Copyright Amendment Bill does is it allows South Africa to then ratify the Marrakesh Treaty. And this treaty is designed specifically to rectify the worldwide shortage of excessively formatted reading material, which is internationally recognised as the book famine.”