Author name: Ben Cashdan

By ReCreate South Africa The cost of excluding billions of people in Africa and the Global South from access to knowledge could be huge for future generations. Knowledge-sharing in Africa is not always transactional, and the existing IP and copyright paradigms are not working well for creators or audiences on the continent. Creators are often poorly remunerated and in many cases audiences and students cannot afford access to knowledge and entertainment. Some global corporations take an extractive and exploitative approach to African creativity. Africa needs a new knowledge governance system to take into account the role of traditional and indigenous knowledge. These were the conclusions of an international conference entitled “Copyright and the Public Interest: Africa and the Global South” held last month in South Africa. The convenors were ReCreate South Africa, a coalition of creators and users of copyright material and the conference took place at the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg (3 February), at the University of Cape Town Library (5 February) and at Innovation City (6 February). This conference was a follow-on from ReCreate’s inaugural conference on the “Right to Research in Africa” held at the University of Pretoria and the University of Cape Town in January 2023. Conference partnered with Program on Information Justice and Intellectual Property (PIJIP), the intergovernmental organisation, South Center, the University of Cape Town’s IP Unit, Mandela Institute, Law School and more. The conference was made possible by PIJIP and Arcadia, as well as Open Air. You can watch the full conference sessions online. IP as a tax on African Creativity: Protecting the Livelihoods of Creators In his opening input, Ben Cashdan, convener of ReCreate South Africa and former economic advisor to President Nelson Mandela, said that IP royalties are a de facto tax on Africa. “Income from IP royalties on all creativity, on all inventions around the world, topped $1 trillion in the past 24 months for the first time, and the United States gets about $130 billion of that. Africa gets a tiny fraction. Could that be because we don’t have creatives? Could that be because we don’t have actors, writers, musicians? Obviously not. The system operates in such a way that we don’t get the fruits of our labor here in this country and on this continent.” South African singer Mercy Pakela, whose music topped the charts in the 1980s, recounted how she had signed with record labels so that her music could be heard by music lovers around the world, but over 40 years later she still feels she has not received fair remuneration. Pakela said “I wish I knew then what I know now because then I did not know that it was business. I just wanted to be on stage. I thought it was just about talent.” Jack Devnarain, Chairperson of the South African Guild of Actors highlighted that many performers in Africa die poor due to the power imbalance between artists and their distributors or rights owners. He pointed a finger at those whose business models restrict the livelihoods of African performers and who are opposed to copyright reform.  “There are people, particularly the American-based organizations, the corporate giants in the Global North that are working very hard, and I’m talking about the publishers, the studios, the streamers, the broadcasters, that do not want South African actors to have a royalty earning right.” South Africa’s CAB and Why Teachers Need Fair Use The Copyright Amendment Bill (CAB), passed by Parliament in South Africa, but still awaiting the President’s signature, aims to solve the problem of exploitation of artists by introducing a right to fair royalties or equitable remuneration. The CAB also broadens access to knowledge for communities. Hence it addresses the needs of both constituencies, creators and users. The President has referred the Bill to the Constitutional Court over concerns that it may lead to arbitrary deprivation of property of rights holders. Advocate Iain Currie, lawyer for ReCreate raised questions around whether Intellectual Property is property in the traditional sense and also challenged the view that adjustments to Copyright laws in the public interest are arbitrary.  One of the main objectives of the CAB is to ensure that teachers and learners have access to educational materials, which is clearly a public interest goal. According to Dr Mugwena Maluleke, President of Education International, “there is a shocking shortage of 44 million teachers worldwide. A major catalyst for this shortage is the inability to attract and retain teachers due to inadequate conditions for providing quality teaching,” including a shortage of textbooks and learning materials. “Fair use in education is the key that unlocks the door to a world of knowledge and creativity, by allowing educators to utilize copyrighted materials in their teaching.”  Moreover “Fair copyright legislation is essential to enabling teachers to adapt and use the material and reach an increasingly diverse student body.”  Maluleke is also General Secretary of SADTU, the largest teachers union in South Africa, with a membership of over 250 000 teachers and workers.  Dr Sanya Samtani, Senior Researcher at the Mandela Institute in the Law Faculty at the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg echoed these sentiments. “The Copyright Amendment Bill is an example of the state trying to regulate copyright, trying to fulfill its international obligations on copyright, and also its human rights obligations, which are constitutional and international in nature.” ‘AI for Good’ in Africa The conference considered the importance of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in solving the world’s most pressing challenges, including climate change, pandemic responses and countering misinformation. Generative AI has understandably raised alarm bells amongst creatives. Professor Vukosi Marivate, Chair of Data Science at the University of Pretoria, described a project in which broadcast TV shows in South Africa could be used to train AI models to educate local communities about primary health care in indigenous African languages. Marivate said that a power reset needs to take place between local communities and Big Tech based in the Global North. This will allow AI to be used to protect