For those of us without disabilities, when we stop by the shops or the library to pick up a copy of the hot-off-the-press novel that everyone’s talking about, we don’t think twice about the mechanics of reading it. A quick in and out, and we are turning to chapter one.
There are explicit exceptions in the Act that exclude certain uses from these penalties, but changing a book’s format for the purposes of providing access for people with visual disabilities isn’t one of them. Some argue that the Act empowers the trade, industry & competition minister to create such an exception through regulations.
On this basis, BlindSA and Section 27 brought a constitutional challenge to the Copyright Act in the Pretoria high court in late 2021. They argued that this state of affairs amounts to unfair discrimination against a particularly vulnerable group.