There's a lot of interesting copyright in the recent South
African judgment of South African Broadcasting Corporation v
Via Vollenhoven & Appollis Independent CC and others.
The background can be summarised simply: South Africa's
state broadcaster, the SABC, commissioned a filmmaker to make an
investigative documentary for its factual genre TV channel. The
filmmaker made the documentary and the SABC paid the fee (thus
making it the owner of the copyright in the documentary under South
African law). However, the SABC decided against airing the
documentary. It appears from the judgment that the SABC felt that
the documentary had quality issues and factual inaccuracies, which
would expose the SABC to the risk of liability for defamation. It
also appears that the filmmaker made requests to buy back the
rights, but the SABC ultimately rejected these requests. When the
filmmaker arranged for a small private screening of the film at a
festival, the SABC took action.
