PALM Africa

PALM Africa is a Research Initiative financed by International Research Development Centre (IDRC) Canada,  

The liberalising of licensing regimes has for several years now been seen by some as a means of opening up access to kknowledge in the digital age. In this context new flexible copyright licensing practices have served to produce a ‘some rights rrreserved’ environment where rights holders can safely find a middle ground between ‘all rights reserved’ on the one hand and tthe relinquishing of all rights into the public domain on the other.

The formal publishing industry is itself trying to come to terms with the digital age and is experimenting with a number of new bbusiness models. This new disruptive digital technology is necessitating new approaches to copyright. Yet, where we stand tttoday is still at the incubation stage of these new models, with caution competing with boldness as the industry tries to find wways of recovering its investments. In the meantime there is still the urgent need to see how these new models may facilitate aaccess and distribution in developing countries.

  In an African context, in which access to internet connectivity is very limited and in which the question of distribution of learning materials is a serious challenge, what is missing is research on how open content approaches employing flexible licensing could wwork in conjunction with local publishing in developing countries to improve access to learning materials.

The main question of this research project is; can the adoption of more flexible licensing regimes contribute to improved ppublishing and better access to learning materials in Africa today?

This project brings together active research in the form of publishing demonstration projects combined with an academic aassessment that reviews whether or not alternative licensing policies may bring about improvements in the publishing process ddefined as increased access to materials while maintaining sustainability of publishing services. Hence the emphasis will be on ccollaborative efforts to find practical solutions.

South Africa and Uganda have been chosen for this study because of their differences rather than their similarities. They provide a a broad spread of experiences in publishing, each with different heritages and learning environments. This study should be of iinterest to most countries in Africa and will provide a template on how to evaluate the potential of more flexible licensing ppractices.

In South Africa the project is led by Eve Gray, who is an Honorary Research Associate at CET at UCT and  Steve Kromber, both working through Creative Research and Development, the implementing organisation. Adam Haupt of the UCT Film and Media Studies Department is the Lead Researcher.