Re: Re: Abolishing perpetual copyright in unpublished works

• Original Message ----- From: Samuel Murray <leuce[_at_]absamail.co.za> Date: Monday, August 28, 2006 3:55 pm Subject: [CNI-(C)] Re: Abolishing perpetual copyright in unpublished works

> In ZA, the copyright of an unpublished work expires 50 years of
> the the
> death of the author. AFAIK this rule applies to all works past
> and present.

On second thought, is this accurate? On my reading of what I think is a consolidated version of the ZA statute, it looks like the old British perpetual copyright in unpublished works still stands in ZA, as it does in Australia:

(2) The term of copyright conferred by this section shall be, in the case of-

(a) literary or musical works or artistic works, other than photographs, the life of the author and fifty years from the end of the year in which the author dies: Provided that if before the death of the author none of the following acts had been done in respect of such works or an adaptation thereof, namely-

(i) the publication thereof;
(ii) the performance thereof in public;
(iii) the offer for sale to the public of records thereof;
(iv) the broadcasting thereof;

the term of copyright shall continue to subsist for a period of fifty years from the end of the year in which the first of the said acts is done; Received on Tue Aug 29 2006 - 02:20:30 GMT