EFF statement on the referral of the Copyright and Performers Protection Amendment Bills to the Constitutional court by President Ramaphosa
18 October 2024
The Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) is appalled by the President's move to refer the Copyright and Performers Protection Amendment Bills to the Constitutional Court for a judiciary decision. This questionable move comes after a prolonged delay by President Cyril Ramaphosa to sign the bills into law.
The Copyright Amendment Bill, introduced to Parliament in 2017, seeks to strike a fairer balance between the commercial rights of copyright holders and the right of users to access works. While the Performers' Protection Amendment Bill is designed to safeguard the economic rights of performers, and also protecting the rights of producers of sound recordings. This vital legislation ensures that performers are fairly compensated and recognised for their contributions, granting them greater control over how their work is used and distributed. However, this crucial legislation has faced significant delays, including President
Ramaphosa's refusal to sign it into law in 2020, citing concerns over the constitutionality of certain provisions. Earlier this year, both houses of Parliament finally approved the bill and once again sent it to the President for assent. And yet he continues his delaying tactics, as is his nature with all proposed legislation, which means that artists are suffering, while additional changes that could be made are also being delayed.
Ramaphosa's decision to refer the bills to the Constitutional Court is an outright abdication of his presidential duties. By doing so, he undermines Parliament, the elected body meant to represent the people directly affected by these bills. The EFF has repeatedly raised critical concerns about these bills. First, they should not have been consolidated, as they serve vastly different interests — addressing the distinct needs of actors, artists, writers, performers, musicians, and more. In their current form, these bills benefit actors, allowing them to claim royalties from reruns, and additionally allowing for artists to be compensated for their work while retaining their copyright.
However, for performers it is still not sound as it still does not allow for them to claim their rights back for music that they made under predatory contracts from big music companies. It only allows for the rights to be returned after 50 years, which means performers will have their work used and played and will not receive royalties until the copyright reverts back to them, by which time it will no longer be profitable in any way.
This gives free room for capitalist vultures to keep their proceeds from exploitation, and entrenching performers and musicians into further poverty as they cannot rely on their own hard work for livelihoods. Creative owners have been exploited for far too long, with the majority of them dying as paupers. By giving this decision over to the Constitutional Court, there is a worry that there will no longer be room to rectify some of these issues that are still of concern and have been raised severally by the very people of concern in these bills.
As it is with the very fight that EFF is waging against land dispossession, the EFF remains resolute about the need to fight against the dispossession of intellectual property rights. There shall never be economic freedom in our lifetime as long as these rights remains in the hands of the few white monopoly capitalists. Essentially, the EFF sees the President's reasons for the referral of the bills as a mere tactic to justify further delays due to his own inefficiency to deal with the two bills.
Therefore, we will do whatever it takes to fight this battle to its ultimate end, and that is, to have bills that protect artists/creatives from perpetual exploitation and abject poverty.
Issued by Leigh-Ann Mathys, National Spokesperson, 18 October 2024
