Download the PDF (1.1 MB)

The BISA Copyright Review is a human-readable, comparative, nuanced report on the copyright review process in Brazil, India and South Africa. The goal is for those involved in the copyright review process (government, lobbyists, academics, government advisers, activists) to learn from the experiences of the target countries - in particular from the experience of India where there has most recently been a copyright review - and to ensure that South Africa and Brazil don’t make the same mistakes in their upcoming review processes. Each chapter of the Review will be distributed through this mailing list and will be archived on this page.

South African Copyright - A Brief History

Rebecca Kahn

South Africa, like many other developing countries, inherited its intellectual property system from its colonial rulers, namely Great Britain and Holland. It is difficult to know what forms of “ownership� of ideas and knowledge existed in South African before the arrival of European settlers because little of these systems was recorded, and the copyright systems that came into being after colonisation made no attempt to include these systems. Read More

Copyright development in Brazil

Paula Martini

Even though the 1830 Brazilian Criminal Code – enforced eight years after the country became independent from Portugal – foresaw the crime of copyright infringement, the first Brazilian law specifically aimed at authorial protection was the 1898 Law no. 496, also referred to as Medeiros e Albuquerque Law, in honour of its author. Read More

A (very) brief history of Copyright Development in India

Prashant Iyengar

Modern copyright law developed in India gradually, in what we may identify roughly as three distinct phases spanning more than 150 years. This article attempts to briefly navigate through the major changes brought in by each successive wave of copyright amendment which have cumulatively resulted in the way Indian Copyright law stands today. Read More