UNTERHALTER AJ
community, there are shades of meaning, and differences that arise as to what a text
means. This is all the more so when we translate a text from one language into another.
Observe, for example, the stark differences between modern translations of classical
texts, and those that were rendered in earlier periods.
[84]
What this illustrates is that a content-based distinction between reproduction and
adaptation will not always be definitive. When words are changed in a text, in an act
of plagiarism, we might want to conclude that the text is nevertheless a copy because
there remains sufficient objective similarity, and hence the work is a reproduction.
However, its content has, in some measure, also been changed. An adaptation that is a
translation is not merely a copy because there is an interpretative engagement with the
text so as to render its meaning.
[85]
It will be apparent that these are fine grained distinctions, and they are more
easily applied in concrete cases of infringement. Here we are asked to decide whether
the power to make regulations to permit of the reproduction of literary works can save
the Copyright Act from constitutional invalidity. In this endeavour we are greatly
constrained. I grant that, as Professor Dean has submitted, the transcription of a
literary work that is simply a copy of the text into another format would qualify as a
reproduction. An example of this is a book in a hard copy edition that is converted into
an electronic copy. But the issue before us is whether the rendering of literary works
into accessible format copies for the use of persons with print and visual disabilities is
also a process of copying a literary work into another format, and no more.
[86]
On the papers before us, this issue received little attention. This came about, so
Blind SA pointed out, because Professor Dean made his intervention before this Court,
and not in the High Court. That may be so, but neither Blind SA nor Professor Dean
have placed much evidence before us as to the accessible format copies used by persons
with print and visual disabilities, the technology used to create these formats, and
whether these formats more closely resemble translations or transcriptions that are in
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