The copyright law of South Africa governs copyright, the right to control the use and distribution of artistic and creative works, in the Republic of South Africa. It is embodied in the Copyright Act, 1978 and its various amendment acts, and administered by the Companies and Intellectual Property Commission in the Department of Trade and Industry.
As of June 2026, a major amendment to the law in the Copyright Amendment Bill, B13F of 2017, had been approved by the South African Parliament in February 2024, but held to be unconstitutional by the Constitutional Court due to one set of its exceptions for educational institutions constituting an arbitrary deprivation of property, in a judgement handed down on 26 June 2026 following its referral by the President for concerns about, amongst others, the constitutionality of its "fair use" clause and its exceptions for translation, education and libraries. The Constitutional Court's hearing of the President's referral, in May 2025, heard arguments from the President, two political parties (the Democratic Alliance and the Freedom Front Plus) and numerous interested persons and organisations. The President is therefore constrained from signing the Bill into law in terms of section 79(5) of the Constitution of the Republic of South Africa, and must refer the Bill back to Parliament.
South Africa is a party to the Berne Convention and the TRIPS Agreement. It has signed, but not ratified, the WIPO Copyright Treaty and the WIPO Performances and Phonograms Treaty. It has not signed or acceded to the Marrakesh Treaty for Persons Who Are Blind, Visually Impaired or Otherwise Print Disabled.
History Initially, after the creation of the Union of South Africa in 1910, the copyright laws of the four formerly-independent provinces continued unchanged. In 1916, Parliament enacted the Patents, Designs, Trade Marks and Copyright Act, 1916, which repealed the various provincial laws and incorporated the British Imperial Copyright Act 1911 into South African law., accessed 10 November 2016. In 1928, along with the other British dominions, South Africa became a party to the Berne Convention in its own right.
After South Africa became a republic in 1961, Parliament enacted its own copyright law, separate from that of the United Kingdom, in the Copyright Act, 1965. Nonetheless, this act was largely based on the British Copyright Act 1956. In 1978 it was replaced by the Copyright Act, 1978, which (as amended), remains in force. The 1978 Act draws both from British law and from the text of the Berne Convention. It has been amended several times, most notably in 1992 to make computer programs a distinct class of protected work, and in 1997 to bring it into line with the TRIPS Agreement.
In September 2021, the Gauteng High Court held that the 1978 Copyright Act is unconstitutional because it does not give adequate freedom for blind and visually impaired readers to translate a work into Braille or other accessible formats, and hence discriminates against people with visual impairment. The applicant, the nonprofit organisation Blind SA, estimated that fewer than 0.5% of published books are available in Braille. The Constitutional Court of South Africa, in September 2022, confirmed the finding of unconstitutionality by the lower court, as was required by section 172(2)(d) of the Constitution of the Republic of South Africa, but varied its order, ordering that the finding of unconstitutionality be suspended for 24 months until September 2024 and that a new provision that it drafted based on the requirements of the Marrakesh Treaty be read into the Copyright Act during the suspension period, thereby giving Parliament the opportunity to amend the Act to cure its unconstitutionality. At the end of the suspension period, the amendment of the Act with a disability exception had been passed by Parliament but not signed into law by the President. Blind SA therefore instituted another legal action, this time directly to the Constitutional Court, resulting in the Court ordering in May 2025 that the provisions of the disability exception in the Copyright Amendment Bill, B13F of 2017, be read into the Act until such time as the Act is amended.
Eligibility for copyright The Copyright Act defines nine classes of work that are eligible for copyright: literary works - including novels, poems, plays, film scripts, textbooks, articles, encyclopedias, reports, speeches, etc. musical works - excluding words sung with the music artistic works - including paintings, sculptures, drawings, photographs, architectural works, works of craftsmanship, etc. cinematograph films - in any medium, including film, tape or digital data sound recordings - in any medium, but excluding film soundtracks broadcasts - signals transmitted by radio waves and intended for public reception programme-carrying signals - signals representing audio and/or video and transmitted via satellite published editions - particular typographical arrangements of literary or musical works computer programs - instructions, in any medium, that direct the operation of a computer
For a work to be eligible for copyright, it must be original, and it must have been written down or recorded in some way (except for broadcasts and programme-carrying signals, which must have been broadcast or transmitted, respectively). "Originality" requires the work to have been produced by the exercise of skill and effort by the author(s). As in all Berne Convention countries, copyright is automatic and does not require registration.
The Copyright Act automatically protects works created by South Africans or in South Africa. It also permits the Minister of Trade and Industry to extend the same protection to works created in, or by residents of, other countries; such protection has been extended to all Berne Convention countries.
Copyright term For literary, musical and artistic works, except for photographs, the copyright term in South Africa is fifty years from the end of the year of the author's death, or fifty years from publication if it is first published after the author's death. For photographs, films and computer programs, the term is fifty years from first publication, or fifty years from creation if not published within fifty years. For sound recordings, broadcasts, programme-carrying signals and published editions, it is fifty years from first publication or transmission.Copyright Act, s. 3(2)
Anonymous works are protected for the shorter of fifty years from first publication or fifty years from the year when it is reasonable to presume the author is dead.Copyright Act, s. 3(3) For works with multiple authors, the fifty years from death are calculated from the death of the last author to die.Copyright Act, s. 3(4) Government works are protected for fifty years from first publication.Copyright Act, s. 5(3)
Commissioned works Generally, ownership of a protected work vests in the author of the work. Section 21(1)(c) of the Act, however, creates a statutory default vesting copyright in certain works in the party commissioning the work rather than in the author.
Section 21(1)(c) states: "(c) Where a person commissions the taking of a photograph, the painting or drawing of a portrait, the making of a gravure, the making of a cinematograph film or the making of a sound recording and pays or agrees to pay for it in money or money's worth, and the work is made in pursuance of that commission, such person shall, subject to the provisions of paragraph (b), be the owner of any copyright subsisting therein by virtue of section 3 or 4."
Exclusive rights of copyright Sections 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 11A and 11B of the Act set out the exclusive rights of copyright in the respective classes of works that are eligible for copyright. These exclusive rights are a closed list of exclusive rights to do or to authorize the doing of certain acts in respect of those works in South Africa, which acts are often referred to as “restricted acts”.
These rights vest in the owner of the copyright in the respective work. If a person other than the copyright owner wishes to undertake a restricted act in respect of a given work protected by copyright and that act is not covered by an exception (see below), that person must obtain the permission (i.e. authorization) of the copyright owner or the owner’s authorized agent. The owner or their agent could grant permission against payment. It is therefore copyright’s requirement for the owner’s authorization to carry out a restricted act with their work that triggers the potential for remuneration of the owner for the use of their work. Carrying out a restricted act without this authorization or licence constitutes an infringement of copyright.Copyright Act, s.23(1)
The most notable restricted acts are the following:
Reproducing the work in any manner or form. This is a restricted act in respect of all classes of copyright work, other than programme-carrying signals.Copyright Act, ss. 6(a), 7(a), 8(a), 9(a), 10(a), 11A and 11B(a) Publishing a literary, musical or artistic work or a computer program if it was hitherto unpublished.Copyright Act, ss. 6(b), 7(b) and 11B(b) Performing a literary or musical work or a computer program in public,Copyright Act, ss. 6(c) and 11B(c) causing a cinematograph film to be seen in public,Copyright Act, s. 8(1)(b) or communicating a sound recording to the public.Copyright Act, s. 9(e) Broadcasting a literary or musical work or a film or a sound recording or a computer programCopyright Act, ss. 6(d), 8(c), 9(c) and 11B(d) or rebroadcasting an earlier broadcast.Copyright Act, s. 10(b) Causing a literary or musical work or a film or a sound recording or a broadcast or a computer program to be transmitted in a diffusion service (other than a diffusion service operated by the original broadcaster that had transmitted a lawful television broadcast containing the artistic work).Copyright Act, ss. 6(e), 8(d), 9(d), 10(c) and 11B(e) Including an artistic work in a film or television broadcast and causing a television or other programme that includes the artistic work to be transmitted in a diffusion service (other than a diffusion service operated by the original broadcaster that had transmitted a lawful television broadcast containing the artistic work).Copyright Act, s. 7(c) and (d) Making an adaptation of a literary, musical or artistic work or of a film or of a computer program, and doing in relation to an adaptation, any of the restricted acts set out above that apply to that class of work.Copyright Act, ss. 6(f) and (g), 7(e) and (f), 8(e) and (f) and 11B(f) and (g) Letting or offering or exposing for hire by way of trade, a copy of a film, sound recording or computer program.Copyright Act, ss. 8(g), 9(b) and 11B(h)
The Constitutional Court, in September 2022, declared sections 6 and 7, read with section 23 of the Act, as unconstitutional, invalid and inconsistent with the constitutional rights of persons with visual and print disabilities, to the extent that those provisions limit the access of such persons to published literary works, and artistic works as may be included in such literary works, in accessible format copies. The declaration of unconstitutionality was suspended until September 2024 to allow remedial legislation to pass, which did not happen. As of July 2025, this limited declaration of the unconstitutionality of the exclusive rights relating to literary and artistic works must be considered to be in effect.