Copying songs from CD to your iPod illegal in South Africa

I came across this digg article that claims “Listening to music on your ipod is illegal in South Africa.”.
Now, I am no expert of the law, but I scanned through ZA’s Copyright Act
and found something interesting. Apparently, South African law does not make provision for copying any sound recording whatsoever for personal use…

At first, I called their bluff after reading this:

Section 12: General exceptions from protection of literary and musical works
(1) Copyright shall not be infringed by any fair dealing with a literary or musical work-
(a) for the purposes of research or private study by, or the personal or private use of, the person using the work;

However, it was pointed out that CD’s and DVD’s do not fall under “musical works”, but are in fact “sound recordings”. And after looking through the act again, I found this:

17 General exceptions regarding protection of sound recordings
The provisions of section 12 (1) (b) and (c), (2), (3), (4), (5), (12) and (13) shall mutatis mutandis apply with reference to sound recordings.

Which does not include 12 (1) (a). This means that you are not exempt from Copyright law if you want to listen to a song from your CD on your iPod, and that you are indeed committing copyright infringement.

It is clear that South Africa needs to re-examine and update its Copyright Laws. It is your right to transfer the contents of your legitimately purchased CD’s and DVD’s to other media for your exclusive and personal use, and this should be reflected by the law.