These are some of the questions, relating to the licensing of reprographic reproduction (photocopying) rights, that DALRO is asked most often by the public. We welcome further questions.

Do I need a license to photocopy a chapter from a book for my own personal and private use?
No. Please refer to the section on fair dealing.

Is it correct that as long as I photocopy 10% or less of a published work, this is permitted?
No, it’s not correct. The Copyright Act says nothing about ‘10%’ or about any other percentage. 10% may be ‘fair’ but then again, it may not, since the test for fair dealing is qualitative as well as quantitative. Please refer to the section on fair dealing.

I want my students to each copy for themselves an article from a journal. Can I put a photocopy of the article on the reserve shelf (short loan collection) in my educational institution’s library for each student to copy under ‘fair dealing’?
No. The photocopied article on the reserve shelf has not been made in terms of section 12 of the Act, nor of the section 13 regulations, and is thus an infringing copy.

How about if I put the journal itself (not a photocopy) on the reserve shelf for the students to on-copy?
Although each student may make a ‘fair dealing’ copy, 100 students each making a copy results in 100 copies. One cannot imagine that a court would regard this as ‘fair’.

If I scan a short extract from a book, or an article in a journal into my computer and transmit it electronically to my students, do I have to get a license?
Yes.

But how would I know how many copies are going to be printed out at the other end?
As you couldn’t possibly know this, we presume that every student in the class will receive an electronic copy, and therefore you must license the number of pages in the original (print) work, x the number of students in the class.

May I download and print out an article from the Internet and photocopy it for my class of 20 students?
You may print out a copy for your personal or private use (if there are no technological measures preventing you from doing so) but you may not further reproduce it for students without permission from the rights’ owner.

How do I get permission?
DALRO does not administer ‘electronic rights’. You need to get permission from the owner of copyright.

May I make a copy of a page from a book or journal as a transparency and project it on an overhead projector ?
Yes. This is allowed in terms of Section 12 (4) of the Copyright Act.

The copyright regulations permit a certain number of instances of multiple copying. If I don’t exceed that number, why should I get a licence?
The instances of multiple copying for educational purposes refer specifically to ‘classroom use or discussion’. If the copies are not for classroom use or discussion, you need a license.

How about newspapers and magazines?
Newspapers and magazines (unlike academic and professional journals) usually administer their own reprographic reproduction rights. You need to contact an editor in the publication to get permission. If the article has been contributed by a freelancer, he or she will often own copyright, but your first stop, nonetheless, should be the publication itself.

If the book I want to copy from is out of print, surely I can go ahead?
‘Out of print’ does not necessarily mean ‘out of copyright’. In South Africa, copyright lasts for 50 years after the death of the author. In addition, please remember that there are two copyrights in every published page, and while the author may own copyright in the content, the publisher owns copyright in the published edition, or the typographical arrangement on the page. Copyright in the published edition lasts for 50 years from the end of the year in which the work was first published.

But if the book is out of print and unavailable, the publisher is not losing any sales by my copying his book.
It is wrong to imagine that publishers and authors exploit a work only when it is in print, or that sales are the only means of exploiting a work. Long after the book is out of print it may still generate revenues for its creators through the sale of, for example, translation rights, film rights - and reprographic reproduction (photocopying) rights.

What about photographs, drawings, graphs, maps and so on?
These are all defined as ‘artistic works’ in the Copyright Act, and are copyright protected.

What about theses and dissertations which are lodged in the library or archive of the educational institution where the student completes his or her Master’s or Doctoral degree?
Although a thesis or dissertation is not a published work, it is still copyright protected, and the author of the work is the copyright owner unless he or she has assigned copyright in writing to the institution.

Since DALRO does not own copyright in the books and journals, how can it license the photocopying of them?
It is not necessary to own copyright in a work in order license its reprographic reproduction. Copyright consists of a whole bundle of rights: the right to reproduce a work; to publish it; to publish it in a certain territory, or in a certain language; to adapt it (make a film script from a book or turn a long and complex novel into a easy reader for adults); to include it in an anthology of short stories and poems, and so on. In order to license a photocopy, a person or entity other than the copyright owner, needs only to possess the right of reproduction.

How does DALRO get the right of reproduction?
It enters into agreements with authors and publishers whereby it is mandated to administer this right.

Why should I have to pay copyright fees? Isn’t information supposed to be free?
The royalties collected by RROs find their way back to the rights’ owners, the people who have, through their mental efforts, created the intellectual property in question. Without reimbursement, they have little incentive to go on creating, in which case there would be no information. In any case, no photocopied page is free: you pay for the paper, the ink, the toner and the use of the machine. When you pay a copyright fee as well, you also pay for the content - arguably the most valuable element inherent in the photocopied page.