Tag: intellectual property

If your image (physical image, voice, signature, likeness, etc.) has been used without your consent for commercial purposes, especially in the absence of a contract, proving your case in court would be difficult because South African law does not recognise the existence of a distinct image right.

Native to the Kalahari Desert, Hoodia gordonii is a succulent plant known by generations of indigenous San peoples to have a variety of uses: to reduce hunger, increase energy, and ease breastfeeding. In the global North, it is known as a natural appetite suppressant, a former star of the booming diet industry.

The National Council of Provinces should hang its head in shame after voting in support of the Copyright Amendment Bill. It took this devastating decision despite overwhelming opposition to and patent rejection of the Bill by South African creators and creatives from numerous affected industries – the very people that the Bill is ostensibly meant to protect.

Rapid advances in technology and artificial intelligence in the mining industry raise issues like data protection, intellectual property ownership and legal liability. In the current absence of specific legislation to govern emerging technologies like artificial intelligence, businesses must continue to rely on existing laws and ensure that they enter into robust contracts.

When it comes to Artificial Intelligence (AI), the law of copyright may be one step behind. Copyright is governed in terms of the Copyright Act which protects certain defined “works” including computer programmes, films, and literary, musical and artistic works. Up and until recently, these works have been created exclusively by humans. The advances in AI, however, have resulted in the possibility of an AI creating its own works with little, or even no, human input.

Social networking is increasingly becoming a daily ritual of many South Africans. According to World Wide Worx’s SA Social Media Landscape 2017, Facebook is...

Read our exclusive cover story entitled THE ART OF POSTING - ARE YOU BREACHING COPYRIGHT? by Hugh Melamdowitz, Partner, Spoor & Fisher as well as a host of other topical management articles written by professionals, consultants and academics in the December/January 2017/18 edition of BusinessBrief.

Multinationals in high-tax jurisdictions will now benefit from relaxed IP regulations. The 2017 Budget announced that the regulatory framework regarding cross-border intellectual property transactions is to be relaxed, for both tax and exchange control purposes.

For the second time in history, the African continent has become a focal point for global expansion.  As a result, valuable goods, services and...

As the world has become more connected, so too it has become more vulnerable. As more data is regularly exchanged between employees, clients, and suppliers as well as families and friends - using technologies that were designed to share information, not to protect it - we must realise that there is a greater need for more human involvement and understanding when it comes to the use of technology.