I’ll be speaking on SAFM’s Morning Live After 8 Debate just after the 8am news. Turn your dial between 104-107fm to hear about Creative Commons in South Africa!

Laugh it Off starts second round of its battle against South African Breweries (SABMiller) today at the Supreme Court of Appeals in Bloemfontein.
Great news is that the FXI’s Simon Kimani has enlisted the legal savvy of Advocate Gilbert Marcus to argue the case that Laugh it Off’s constitutional right to freedom of speech is […]

I went to talk to students from the Johannesburg campus of Imagination Labs about the history of copyright and Creative Commons today.
The Imagination Labs were initiated by Café (the Communications and Advertising Forum for Empowerment) and the Vega Brand Communications School in order to help transform the creative communication industry in South Africa.
The […]

‘Global legislation on indigenous knowledge‘ by Anju Sharma is an excellent review of global trends in the protection of indigenous knowledge. Sharma outlines developments as either defensive or positive strategies for protecting or affirming indigenous communities’ interests in developing countries.
Defensive strategies include defining indigenous systems as unpatentable, developing databases of indigenous knowledge products, or […]

Judge Daniels reserved judgement on Disney’s urgent appeal in the Pretoria High Court yesterday to void 240 trademark attachments, which would give the plaintiffs rights over the South African use of some of the company’s best-known characters if Walt Disney loses the case. Read this from the Pretoria News and more from Reuters.

What do the Lion King, rooibos tea and southafrica.com have in common?
Who owns Madiba’s face? Why can’t SAB just Laugh It Off?
Why are films like _The Mielie Kids_ (1917) and _Sarie Marais_ (1931) so important?
What exactly is indigenous knowledge and how do we protect it?

Growing increasingly broad in recent years, copyright has come to determine what […]

‘Copy rights and responsibilities: Defining the South African public commons’
Tuesday, 31 August: 5:30 - 7:00pm
School of Law, University of the Witwatersrand: LB 144. More.