across the bar

Die Antwoord to copyright law

by Steve - Posted 16 February 2012

Die Antwoord are certainly getting their fair share of media attention after their appearance on the David Letterman show. But now they may have landed in some hot water for alleged copyright infringement for featuring an anti-apartheid sculpture in a teaser video for their latest song, Ten$ion.

The sculptor, Jane Alexander, has stated that her intention is not to interfere with other artist's work but her concern is that the band's use of her work, titled The Butcher Boys, and its context might be publicly perceived as reflecting her own artistic intention.

SA copyright law protects sculptures as a form of artistic work. This protection extends to preventing others from including the work in a an online video. However, copyright law does allow for the artistic work to be used in the video by way of background, or where it is incidental to the principal matters represented in the video.

Die Antwoord may have an argument that the sculpture, which is housed at the Iziko SA Museum, was only used as a background in the teaser video. 

Aside from the question of copyright infringement, there is also the question of Ms Alexander's moral rights in her work. These rights include the right to object to any distortion, mutilation or other modification of the work where such action is or would be prejudicial to the honour and reputation of the author. Although Die Antwoord have not modified the actual sculpture itself, there may be an argument that they have depicted it in a different context which could amount to a distortion of the artistic intention behind the work. This seems to be Ms Alexander's main concern with the use of her work in the video.

If her moral rights are found to have been infringed, Die Antwoord would need to stop using the sculpture in the video. The band, to their credit, immediately took the video down and the parties will probably settle the matter between themselves.