Amending the Copyright Act has long been on the horizon of South Africa's legal reform agenda and through the collective effort of stakeholders, a new Copyright Act is now within reach. The first definite step towards progress was the draft Copyright Amendment Bill that was published for comment late in 2015. The Bill, being far from perfect, benefited from various consultations with stakeholders followed by extensive comments submitted by local and international experts. Just shy of two years later, the Department of Trade and Industry has now tabled the Copyright Amendment Bill 2017, a much improved version of the 2015 Bill having incorporated the consultations and comments submitted to th
Rights holders have one day left to apply for a .africa domain name during the Sunrise Phase of the .africa top-level domain (TLD) launch. The Sunrise Phase, which is is set to expire on the 2nd of June 2017, is a special period specifically allocated for rights holders, giving them a head start in securing their trade marks ,trade names or product names before the TLD is open to the general public. In order to obtain a .africa registration during the Sunrise Phase, trademarks or other relevant rights will need to be validated using the trade mark validation system or trade mark clearing house. Validation is only applicable to the Sunrise Phase. At the end of the Sunrise Phase applications f
