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The ins and out of copyright law
| DATE: 17 January 2012 |
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| BY: Thabiso Thantsha |
The recent spat between soft drinks manufacturer Frankie’s and Woolworths got tongues wagging about copyright. Here's what you need to know.
Frankie’s, a soft drink company that produces a range of luxury soft drinks which include homemade ginger beer, cinnamon cola and root beer, to name a few, got into a dispute with Woolworths in December last year when it claimed that Woolworths was creating similar products to that of Frankie's.
According to Woolworths, Frankie’s didn’t own the copyright to the brand of its products, and they also denied that they copied Frankie’s design concept, citing that it has had the product in its beverage section since 2003. Mark Schmidt, owner of Frankie’s soft drinks, said he started his company in 2006, when he couldn’t travel to the US to satisfy his thirst for root beer.
What is copyright law?
Copyright law comes into existence automatically when skills and efforts are used in the creation of work and various other administrative requirements are complied with. It is not possible to register copyright in SA, but there are exceptions, such as movie scripts.
Vanessa Lawrance, an attorney at Hahn and Hahn Inc who deals with copyright law, says: “Keep your drafts, as this will assist to prove authorship, should that ever be queried. In addition, mark your work with the copyright symbol as well as your name and the year of first creation, as this will assist in any later claims for damages, which requires that the infringer knew that copyright existed in the work.”
“It is then up to the copyright owner to police the public domain to ensure that no one is infringing the copyright law, and to take further action to protect copyright if infringement is found,” Lawrance concludes.
Three copyright facts
1. Copyright generally last for 50 years from the death of the author. This is a very basic rule; reference must be made to the Copyright Act in each instance to determine whether this rule is applicable or whether the copyright falls under one of the exemptions.
2. Copyright ownership can only be transmitted in writing.
3. Copyright is an asset which should be mentioned in the testament of the owner.
