Nkosikhona Polo Sibanda

#HungweGetsPhDInLawInNewJourney #FromJournalistToLawyerToAcademic Zimbabwean journalist-turned-lawyer -and now academic - Brian Hungwe recently graduated with a degree of Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) in law in the Faculty of Commerce, Law, and Management at the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa. Dr Hungwe's thesis, submitted in February last year, was in Intellectual Property Law. His supervisor was Malebakeng Forere, a professor of Intellectual Property Law and International Investment Law at the University of the Witwatersrand Law School. Hungwe initially trained as a journalist at Harare Polytechnic in late 1990s with colleagues who now run the media, then studied law at the University of Zimbabwe, and subsequently practiced for a brief period at Harare Law Chambers under the tutelage of former Prosecutor-General Ray Goba. He then left for South Africa in 2020 for further studies where he eventually obtained his PhD. Prior to that, he had worked for many years as a journalist mostly at the Zimbabwe Independent newspaper, SABC and BBC, as well as with some freelance media platforms. Hungwe is now going to join the University of South Africa - the largest open distance learning institution in Africa - focusing on research postgraduate examination supervision and lecturing intellectual property law. In his thesis, Hungwe, who went to Chegato High School in Mberengwa, Midlands province, writes: "The advent of the Internet and digital technology, often called the Information Age or Digital Age inexorably facilitated the migration from analogue technology creating substantial ramifications on copyright law and its industries. The Digital Age’s technology capabilities are a double-edged sword; both promising and harmful to creative content producers and end-users. On one hand, the downside of the digital devices is that they facilitate harmful infringement patterns by their ease of storage, rapid dissemination of creative expressions to millions of end users, and this done at a negligible cost without any copy deterioration of quality. This makes it difficult for content producers to maintain their framework for limited exclusive rights, in particular, the making available right. The upside is, inter alia, information availability systems encompassing social connectivity, communication speed andlow-cost learning opportunities for end users. The existing copyright tensions now require statutory interventions to create market equilibrium. A fair balance between rightsholders’and end users’ interests is necessary because the Digital Age has created grim prospects of indigence for many South African copyright holders’ owing to its relentless facilitation of the exploitation of online content without corollary statutory compensation. The rightsholders’ remuneration interest affected by the digital technology varies from musicians, filmmakers, literary arts (authors), producers, publishers, media proprietors/journalists and performers. South African artists’ songs are being downloaded and shared on WhatsAppplatforms without accompanying compensation at alarming levels. While some of the creative expressions distribution on such digital platforms is for non-commercial purposes, Recording Industry of South Africa (RiSA) reports that the sharing of content on unsanctioned digital platforms is depriving musicians their hard-earned money..."