The Copyright Act does not require registration in order to
acquire copyright in respect of a particular work. Instead
copyright subsists automatically once a work has been completed,
provided that certain requirements are met.
Firstly, the work must be original. What this means is that the
work does not have to be inventive as such but must have been
created as a result of the author's own original labour and
skill.
Secondly, it must be reduced to writing or recorded in some
material form i.e. it must have a tangible existence as there is no
copyright in ideas or concepts.
Additional requirements are that the author must have been a
qualified person at the time the work or a substantial part thereof
was created. In other words, if the author is a natural person,
he/she must either be a South African citizen, domiciled in South
Africa or a citizen of a Berne Convention country. In the case of a
juristic person, it must be a body incorporated under the laws
