Privatising the public record?

by Posted on

Our Honourable Minister of Justice, Comrade Patrick Chinamasa, is currently steering a bill through the Parliament of Zimbabwe which I believe requires scrutiny.

The General Laws Amendment Bill, among other issues, seeks to amend the Copyright and Neighbouring Act by giving copyright protection to legislation, notices and other material in the Government Gazette, court judgments and certain public registers.

Copyright in all these documents will vest in government. Government, as copyright holder, will have complete discretion in deciding whether or not the documents should be published and disseminated, after their initial publication in the Gazette; and government will be able to dictate the terms and conditions under which the documents are published and disseminated.

Now, some people will scream that government, or at least certain hyper-revolutionary elements in government, are trying to privatise the public record.

Some will even say the government is acting to stifle distribution of what should be public information by non-state actors, e.g. NGOs and such.

But not me.

Published by Joe Black

2 Replies to “Privatising the public record?”

  2. Sounds like they wanna make sure that any fuck ups are not virally distributed. They saw the number you did on ‘thrush’ and ‘blow’, and so are making sure people like you don’t get to do it on Govt docs.

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