hi,
On Wed, Nov 25, 2015 at 1:45 PM, Jan Vermeulen <nanderman(a)gmail.com> wrote:
To give our readers as expert an opinion as possible,
we’ve solicited
comment from various legal professionals, all of whom have said that
downloading is illegal but not criminal, and that distribution is criminal.
This is the problem ... of course lawyers want to make money.... they will
spin all kinds of things that invoke fear
This is the same reason they also argue that streaming Netflix in South
Africa is technically illegal, even though you’ve paid
for it.
No, totally different story.. I agree Netflix is clearly illegal by it's
own T&Cs
These experts have further said that it is extremely unlikely that you
would face a civil case for just downloading in South
Africa. (That doesn’t
make it any less illegal, though.)
'expert' lawyers... who want business and work in this area....
SAFACT might have said that downloading copyrighted content without a
license is legal in 2007 (I haven’t seen a record of
this), but they don’t
make or interpret the laws.
they represent the owners of the content - so if they are the ones that say
they won't prosecute then they only if they change their minds would it be
something to concern...
That said, we have actually asked SAFACT for feedback on piracy-related
issues on numerous occasions and have got nothing out
of them. They were
all too keen to talk about their case against Majedien Norton, of course,
but then Corné Guldenpfennig left and things got quiet again.
Ask James Lennox.. he used to work there.. I can get the powerpoint if you
need... it's really not worth my efforts...
There must be anything from 5 to 10 articles on MyBroadband that deal with
this issue, all of which provide comment from legal
experts, and all of
which lay things out pretty much as I have above.
Exactly my concern....
Jan, let's for example look at your article from today: "This is when SA’s
ISPs hand over the private information of pirates" - 'pirates' is undefined
and the content of the article seems little to do with that.... should you
have used a headline - "AFAIK there's only one pirate in SA" - then I
would suggest you're reporting headlines that represent the content and the
law in this respect... the headline that you used invokes fear and suggests
that anyone downloading is a pirate...
Sincerely,
aLan