The African Commons Project, with the National Consumers Forum, has just launched our 1978… What were you doing? campaign, which is all about mobilising South Africans to lobby for a review of the current Copyright Act of 1978.

Yes, 1978! That’s 32 years ago! But quite a bit has changes since then! From a new democratic South Africa, to Gautrain and Bus Rapid Transit routes, to a South African on the moon – who would have thought? Changes in technology have also progressed in leaps and bounds – in 1978 people were more likely to make a phone call than IM, write a letter rather than Skype, send an internal memo than Tweet, or have a braai as a social networking opportunity.

The point is that intellectual property laws that were created over thirty years ago for an analogue world need to be updated to take into account our thriving, sociable, digital economy!

Understanding the debate around access to knowledge is key to understanding why, and how, the Copyright Act should be updated. We have tons of resources available here if you’d like to find out more about this very important cause.

But apart from doing some reading and some surfing, you can enter our ‘What were you doing in 1978?’ competition, were you could stand a chance to win FREE BROADBAND INTERNET FOR A YEAR courtesy of PLuGG.

All you have to do is go to our Facebook page and upload a photo depicting either what you WERE doing in 1978 related to technology, or what people in 1978 WEREN’T doing thanks to the technology we have today.

So you can EITHER:

• Upload a photo of yourself in 1978 (or as near to 1978 as you can get), doing something technology-related that was typical of the ’70s. For example, this could be a photo of you using the telephone, listening to the radio or watching TV…
  OR
• If you didn’t exist in 1978, upload a photo of what people of that time WEREN’T doing thanks to all the great technology we have today! This could be a photo of you using technology like your phone, laptop or computer, playing on your Wii, listening to your music on your iPod, or Skyping…

The competition closes on 18 May – so get uploading!