KUNSKAPITAAL
Protecting your voice, your face and your work
Die beskerming van jou stem, jou gesig en jou werk
For South African creatives · by Dr Mitchell J Gow
Keep what is yours. Then let it earn.
A convincing copy of your voice now costs roughly the electricity it takes to make it, and the raw material is whatever you have already published. The law did not change. The cost of copying did. This is the handbook and the four legal documents for holding on to your voice, your face and your work under South African law, and for licensing them on your own terms when you choose to.
Weet wat joune is. Hou wat joune is. Laat groei wat joune is.
For musicians, voice artists, actors, illustrators and photographers · grounded in SA copyright, performers' rights and POPIA · legal templates reviewed by a South African attorney
A voice on an advert that was not the voice that recorded it. An illustrator whose style became a preset. A session player who heard themselves on a track they had never played on. Most of them had signed something first.
South African copyright law dates from 1978 and performers' rights from 1967. Neither was written for this. Copyright protects your recording, your image and your text. It does not protect your style, and a model that produces new work in your manner has copied no work. What protects you now is what you keep, what you sign, and what you do in the first hour after something goes wrong.
One handbook, three movements
Read the first three chapters once, properly. Then use the rest when you need it.
Know what you own
The four things you own, in descending order of legal comfort: your recordings and works, your fixed performances, your identity, and your style. Which right is engaged by which kind of copying, and which one is not protected at all.
Hold on to it
Three free habits before you release. The contract phrases that swallow everything. The session, the riskiest hour in a working musician's career. And for the bad day: what to do in the first hour, and how the statutory takedown route works.
Let it grow
Licensing your likeness on purpose, for money. The seven things a licence must specify, the three positions on who owns the clone, and six tests for a fair digital twin deal.
Inside the handbook
Thirteen short chapters in four parts, a plain-language glossary, and the sources so you can verify any of it.
The four legal documents
AI Reservation Clause Library (14 modular clauses) · Session Consent and Release (two pages) · Synthetic Voice and Likeness Licensing Agreement · Section 77 Takedown Notification (guide, checklist and letter)
Why this matters now
On 26 June 2026 both Bills went back to Parliament. Neither is law.
The Copyright Amendment Bill and the Performers' Protection Amendment Bill were meant to modernise the framework. The Constitutional Court ruled on both, and returned both to Parliament for reconsideration.
Whatever Parliament eventually passes will not apply retrospectively to a model already trained, or to a contract already signed. Until then, contract is doing the work the statute is not. That is why four of the five documents in this pack are contracts.
Silence is not protection. If a contract says nothing about AI training, that is not a gap in your favour.
Start free, or take the whole pack
The check tells you where you stand. The pack gives you the documents to do something about it.
The Nine-Point Check
Free
Four pages, attorney-verified
- Nine checks across releasing, signing and responding
- The one sentence to ask for in any contract
- The statutes, cases and collecting societies behind each point
Handbook + four legal documents
R399
Instant download after payment
- The KunsKapitaal handbook (PDF)
- AI Reservation Clause Library: 14 modular clauses for a contract someone else drafted
- Session Consent and Release: a two-page form for any session, sitting or shoot
- Synthetic Voice and Likeness Licensing Agreement: the full licence, for when you decide to say yes
- Section 77 Takedown Notification: guide, ten-point checklist and letter
- Templates supplied as editable Word documents
One honest warning. This pack will not stop a model that has already trained on your published work. Nothing will. What it does is make you a much harder target from here on, and put you in a position to say yes on good terms rather than no on bad ones. The documents are templates, not legal advice: take them to your own attorney for review before you use or sign them. Licensed to the purchasing individual or organisation.
Start free: the Nine-Point Check
Nine checks for South African creatives, on four pages: what to keep before you release, what to look for before you sign, and what to do when something is already up. Sent to your inbox.
Questions
Is this legal advice?
No. It is general informational guidance for South African creatives. It is not tailored to your facts and does not create an attorney-client relationship. Take the templates to your own attorney for review before you use or sign them. The handbook tells you when to call an attorney, and what to bring so the first meeting costs you less.
Will this stop AI from copying my style?
No, and the handbook says so plainly. Style is not protected under South African law. The pack concentrates on what does work: your contracts, your evidence, and your rights in your actual recordings, performances and identity.
Who is it for?
Working South African creatives: musicians and session players, voice-over artists, actors, illustrators and photographers. It is also useful to the producers, studios, agencies and managers who contract with them.
Does it cover the law outside South Africa?
No. Scope is limited to South African law. AI systems are often trained and hosted across borders, and foreign legal regimes may apply to the same facts.
What format do I get?
The handbook is a typeset PDF. The four legal documents are editable Word files, because you will need to fill them in.
Can I share it with my band, studio or agency?
The licence covers use within the purchasing individual or organisation. It is not for resale or distribution to other parties.