Qualified person
Remember our discussion about the territorial nature of intellectual property? There are Japanese patent rights (enforceable only in Japan), French copyright (enforceable only in France), and so on. The same applies to South Africa.
We look at how international copyright works later on, but the basic position is that you will have South African copyright (i.e. copyright enforceable in South Africa) in a work if you create the work whilst you are a South African citizen, or if you are permanently resident in South Africa. This is what is meant by a ‘qualified person’.
Read section 3(1) of the Copyright Act.
Copyright will also subsist in a work if the author was not a qualified person, provided the work was first published (or, in the case of certain works, made) in South Africa.
Read section 4 of the Copyright Act.