Harare – Zimbabwe’s prominent media houses, including ZimInd Publishers, Associated Newspapers of Zimbabwe, Zimpapers, and Business Times, have issued a stern legal notice threatening legal action against digital platforms found infringing on their copyrights.
In a legal notice issued yesterday, the media houses invoked the Copyrights and Neighbouring Rights Act [Chapter 26:05] to underscore their rights to protect their content from unauthorized use and distribution.
The notice highlighted the growing concern of some social media accounts illicitly “mining” content from established media houses without proper consent and subsequently disseminating it without acknowledging the source.
“This practice constitutes a flagrant violation of the Copyrights and Neighbouring Rights Act and carries a penalty of U$2,000,” stated the media houses in their legal notice.
The media houses emphasized their commitment to taking legal action against any party found culpable of content theft, asserting their rights as duly registered entities with the Zimbabwe Media Commission.
“Piracy of our content is a serious breach of the law,” the notice reiterated, specifying the penalty for such breaches as a reasonable royalty fee of US$2,000 per month.
“We shall not hesitate to prosecute any person or entity found distributing our content without our consent,” warned the media houses. “This includes WhatsApp group administrators whose groups were created for the purposes of distributing news and/or for the purposes of the republication or distribution of any of our content.”
The notice concluded with a demand for an immediate cease-and-desist of any unauthorized republication, distribution, circulation, and sharing of content belonging to the media houses, warning of impending legal action against violators.
