Schindlers Attorneys and COBRA War Room Newsletter 02 June 2020

Copyright Infringement Online in This New COVID-19 Environment

With societies worldwide forced to move swiftly into a digital reality due to the COVID-19 pandemic, it will become increasingly important to protect your original work from copyright infringement. Many tech savvy copyright infringers exist on the web and will illegally appropriate your work for their own commercial benefit without your permission, nor by you granting them a license to utilise your work in return for a substantial sum of money.
 

Association of Mineworkers and Construction Union and Others v Ngululu Bulk Carriers (Pty) Limited (In Liquidation) and Others (CCT15/18) [2020] ZACC 8

In the case of an unfair dismissal being referred to conciliation, it is the unfairness of the dismissal that is being referred, regardless of whether the unfairness concerned was automatic or otherwise. It is not reasons for a dismissal which must be referred to conciliation but rather the unfairness of the dismissal.
 

Occupational Health and Safety in the Workplace: A Strategy to Combat the Spread of COVID-19

As of 1 May 2020, South Africa entered an “Alert Level 4” of lockdown, down from the previous Alert Level 5. This has warranted amendments to specific regulations in order to enable the safe and compliant reopening of certain permitted business enterprises across the country. This article looks at the measures that must be taken by employers in order to protect the health and safety of workers and members of the public who enter the workplace or who are exposed to business activities.
 

COVID19: Copyright Law and Distance Learning

COVID-19 has changed the way that we live, work, and communicate. We have been driven to rely on technological advancements, more so than ever before – particularly through mobile and cloud-based productivity and messaging tools.
 

Educators have had to collaborate to adapt their curriculums to online and distance learning and will, therefore, need to be alive to the basic principles of copyright law, so that they do not unwittingly contravene provisions of the Copyright Act 98 of 1978 (the “Act”) when utilising these online tools to educate their students.
 

Parking in Sectional Title Schemes

The allocation of parking is one of the most contentious and sensitive topics in sectional title schemes and trustees often have to ensure that they apply only lawful methods in allocating parking in order to avoid members challenging the legality of same. This article explains how parking bays can be lawfully created and/or allocated.
 

COVID-19 and the Implications of Price Gouging

On 15 March 2020, COVID-19 was declared a national disaster in terms of the Disaster Management Act 57 of 2002 (“the Disaster Act”), with the nationwide lockdown commencing on 27 March 2020. The purpose of this article is to provide the reader with a basic and general understanding of the effect of COVID-19 on price gouging.