Publishers’ association of south africa

Information and Education

It is apparent from the numerous queries that regularly reach the authors of this report that authors and many publishers (particularly new publishers) have little understanding of copyright, how it works, its value and importance.

Perhaps it would not be going too far to comment that, generally, South African publishers’ knowledge of rights issues is in need of improvement, and that publishers themselves recognise this to be so. This does not only affect the legal and professional relationship between publishers and authors, but also that between publishers and publishers. It all boils down to a failure in many cases to prioritise the management of intellectual property as one of the cornerstones of the publishing business.
A vital part of the print industry sector’s strategy for a healthy copyright environment is therefore the encouragement of information and education campaigns, as well as training initiatives within the industry sector, to create a higher profile for copyright issues and a greater understanding of the value of copyright.

COPYRIGHT AWARENESS AND EDUCATION CAMPAIGNS We are indebted, for the basis of the following notes and suggestions for such campaigns, to the paper ‘Report on Copyright Awareness to the Copyright Committee on Copyright Awareness and Education’, prepared by Amanda Kornfeld for the International Publishers’ association in July 2002. The first steps in copyright awareness campaigns are to identify the message to be communicated and the target audience. A simple working definition of copyright awareness might be: existence, importance and consequences.