Legal Deposit Act: Exemptions
(Art. 5 of the Copyright Act No. 54, 1997)
5. (1) (a) If, owing to the high unit cost of publishing any particular document, or its unique or labour-intensive production method, the publisher of such document is likely to suffer serious financial or other hardship should he or she supply a copy of the document free of charge to every place of legal deposit in terms of section 2 (1), the Minister may, upon application from the publisher and after consultation with the Committee, exempt such publisher from the obligation to supply a copy of such document to such place or places of legal deposit as may be specified by the Minister.
(b) The Minister shall not exempt a publisher under paragraph (a) from his or her obligation to supply a copy of a document to the South African Library or the National Film, Video and Sound Archives, as the case may be, and to furnish the State Library with the information contemplated in section 2 (2).
(c) The Minister may, after consultation with the Committee, grant financial relief to publishers who suffer serious financial hardship as a result of their obligation to supply certain documents to the South African Library or the National Film, Video and Sound Archives, as the case may be: Provided that such relief shall not exceed the cost of producing an additional copy of such documents.
(2) If a place of legal deposit does not require a particular document, or a particular category of documents, to which the provisions of section 2 (1) apply, the head of such place of deposit may exempt the publisher in writing from the obligation to supply a copy of such document or category of documents to that place of legal deposit.
(3) If a publisher is exempted under this section from the obligation to supply a copy of a document to the State Library, such publisher must nevertheless furnish the State Library with the information ontemplated in section 2 (2) relating to that document.
(4) An exemption granted under subsection (1) (a) or (2) in respect of a particular document or any particular category of documents may be withdrawn in writing by the Minister or the head of the place of legal deposit in question, as the case may be.
Should any publishers/self-publishers feel they have legitimate reasons why they should be exempted in terms of Article 5, they should address a written letter and motivation for exemption to: The Chair, Legal Deposit Committee, and email it to Harry Nkadimeng at Harry.Nkadimeng@nlsa.ac.za, the Legal Deposit Coordinator, who will forward it to the Legal Deposit Committee for discussion and consideration at its next meeting to be held in May 2016.
Please share this information with other publishers and invite them to subscribe to this newsletter by emailing Denise.Nicholson@wits.ac.za with “Subscribe to LD in SA newsletter” in the Subject Field.