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Court Decision

Transvaal Provincial Division, Paramount Pictures Corporation v Video Parktown North (Pty) Ltd, 1986 (2) SA 623 (T)

Finding sufficient to trigger liability the notice of facts that would suggest to a reasonable person that a copyright infringement was being committed.

Court Decision

South Africa

Cape Provincial Division, Arthur E Abrahams & Gross v Cohen and others, 1991 (2) SA 301 (C)

Ruling that indirect liability arises when a copyright owner suffers an economic loss that was foreseeable by a defendant who was under a legal duty to prevent it.

Court Decision

South Africa

South Gauteng High Court, Tschilas and Another v Touch Line media (Pty) LTD, 2004 (2) SA 112 (W), June 26, 2003

Rejecting the safe harbor defense of section 75 of the Electronic Communications because respondent does not fall within the definition of “service provider”, as it is instead the means to obtain access to an information service provider.

Court Decision

South Africa

South Gauteng High Court, H v W, (12/10142) [2013 ZAGP JHC 1; 2013 (2) SA 530 (GSJ) 2013 (5) BCLR 554 (GSJ); [2013] 2 All SA 218 (GSJ), January 30, 2013

Ordering a user to remove defamatory content, but declining to enjoin the respondent from posting any information pertaining to the applicant on Facebook or any other social media, and declining to order Facebook to remove specific material from a user’s webpage (but raising the question of whether the police would have the competence to do so upon failure to act by the user).

Court Decision

South Africa

South Gauteng High Court, Ketler Investments CC t/a Ketler Presentations v Internet Service Providers Association, (2012/1249) [2013] ZAGPJHC 232 , September 19, 2013

Finding that publication of the name of the applicant in the “Hall of Shame” list of spammers by the Internet Service Providers Association (ISPA) was justified by its true character and by the public interest served by the publication. This decision by ISPA was based on the definition of spam contained in its code of conduct, which supplements the generic notion of spam identified by section 45 of the Electronic Communication and Transactions Act and does not afford non-members an opportunity to be heard before being included in such list.

Court Decision

South Africa

Supreme Court, National Media Ltd v Bogoshi 1998 (4) SA 1196 (SCA), September 29, 1998

Identifying two defences from liability for defamation: (1) that defamatory comments were true and of public interest contents of a defamatory statement were true and their publication to the benefit of the public; and (2) where it can be proved that, although the statement was not true, publication was nevertheless reasonable.