Frequently Asked Questions - Intellectual Property Rights

Research in five African countries comparing the socio-economic impacts of Copyright regulation.

The ACCR will be caried out in five African countries including South Africa by local researchers. Leading international researchers from India and Canada will assist in the project. The research is managed through the LINK Center at the School of Public and Development Management at the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg.

Once all the agreements have been signed the project will take approximately two and half years.

This research focuses on case studies of the socio-economic effects of copyright regulation. Conditions in five African countries will be compared, and a methodology developed to extend the research to more African countries.

The Department of Science and Technology is seeking to ensure that publicly financed research has a socio-economic impact. That's an important priority. The Department circulated a draft Bill that seeks to achieve socio economic impact of research by patenting whatever could be patented.

We think that there are important ways of encouraging in socio-economic impact especially novation which aren't in the Bill, so we responded to the Departments invitation to comment.

Everyone who carries out research at a science council or a university, that includes all students studying at South African universities.

The draft Bill stated that everything published in a South African university would have to be screened to see if there was anything which which could be patented. Anything a university chooses not to patent would be considered for patenting by a central government office.

Invention happens when someone comes up with a novel technology, creating something that hasn't been one before. Innovation is when a new technology or something else novel, changes society, such as when a new product generates a new market. The objective of researchers is understanding, the objective of entrepreneurs is innovation.

We made submissions to the Department of Science and Technology by the deadline, 20 August 2007.

The Department of Science and Technology will consider all the submissions made to it it, and decide what to do.

OOXML is an XML based document format devised by Microsoft. OOXML was placed on the International Standards Organisation (ISO) fast track process for adoption as an open document format.

Yes, ISO has already adopted ODF (Open Document Format) as an open document format.

An XML based file format for saving and exchanging editable office documents including books, reports, spreadsheets and presentations, that is open. A standard such as this is considered open when it si vendore neutral, open standard specification, free from any legal restrictions.

An ISO committee is voting whether OOXML should be adopted as an ISO standard, in addition to the existing ISO standard. The South African Bureau of Standards is the South African participant in ISO. The South African representative must decide whether to vote for or against the standard or abstain. The technical sub-committee was tasked with advising what South Africa should do.

An open document format standard means that every set of document software can open and modify the documents without formatting problems. Right now if you use some word processing programs, Microsoft Word, for instance you can't read documents made by other programs.

A single open document format means that you would not have a situation where you can't read a document someone else sent to you. It means that you would never have to buy a software program to understand a government document.

Even if a document is licensed so that it is legal to copy, and re-use the document, if it is in a proprietory format it is not really free, because people have to pay money to buy the program to access the document.

The sub-committee voted 13-4 to advise that the proposed standard should be rejected.

On 2 September the South African representative voted against acceptance of OOXML as a standard. The proposed standard failed to get enough votes for approval on the fast track process.

There are a number of technical problems with OOXML, together they indicate that the specification needs a lot of work before it can appropriately be considered by bodies such as ISO, these included undue reliance on legacy proprietory formats, failure to fully internationalise the standard, questions about integration.

During February the voting on the proposed standard, which took place in September 2007, will be subject to a ballot resolution meeting in which the vote could be changed, and the standard accepted in the fast track process.

If the proposed standard still does not gain acceptance in the fast track procedure it may be considered again under a longer ISO procedure.

A single global open document standard will make using technology cheaper and easier for everyone, and will help ensure access to knowledge in developing countries. That's because the current standard, ODF, is used by open source projects which provide free, open source software which is rapidly being adopted by the developing world.

A single standard increases access to knowledge. Incompatible global standards reduces access to knowledge.

A section by section review of the provisions of the South African Copyright Act 1978 with particular focus on sections which impact access to knowledge, especially access to learning materials.

The review is open because its conducted using a media wiki. Anyone can comment on a section by using the “discuss” tab. Its also open because its object is to encourage open discussion about openning knowledge.

Anyone can comment on the wiki using the discuss feature. The review aims especially to solicit the views of those who aren't often heard on copyright; librarians, educationalists and learners, the sensorily disabled, software coders and new media paractitioners.

To find out how copyright law affects people, how it is understood in different communities, and what sections people struggle with most.

The Open Copyright Review is being conducted by the Foundation, together with the Trade Law Centre of South Africa (tralac) with support from the Open Society Institute, and assistance from a number of academics and intellectual property experts.

Pearson plc bought Harcourt Education International from Elsivier in an international deal. Pearson owns a South African publishing company, Maskew Miller Longman, and Harcourt owns a South African publisher, Heinemann. Control of both publishers passes to Pearson and that is regarded as a merger in law.

There are only five large textbook publishers in South Africa, Maskew Miller Longman is the largest. Intergration of Maskew Miller Longman and Heinemann would create a giant publisher much bigger than the other publishers, and that would be bad for competion. Lack of competition means 'one size fits all' type textbooks.

The result of concentration is reduced competition, fewer titles, less diversity, and often higher prices. Diversity, local content, appropriate content, translation into South African languages are all very important for textbooks. Textbooks are important in forming a child's worldview. For many South African children textbooks are the only books they'll ever see.

The Competition Commission allowed the merger to go ahead but ruled that Maskew Miller Longman and Heinemann may not integrate without going back to the Competition Commission for permission. So diversity was preserved, at least for now.

The textbook publishing market is still too concentrated. The printing houses are controlled by large publishers. Many South African school children don't have textbooks and just as many don't have textbooks best suited to them. These are ongoing problems which the Foundation is partnering with others to solve.