In March 2026, EIFL, the International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions (IFLA) and the Geneva Centre on Knowledge Governance (GCKG) submitted comments on Zambia’s Copyright and Related Rights Bill, 2025 (the original deadline was extended to March 31, 2026).

In our comments, EIFL, IFLA and GCKC welcomed several positive provisions from the perspective of libraries, education and research, and people with print disabilities, including new exceptions for text and data mining and people with print disabilities (domesticating the Marrakesh Treaty). 

We also offered technical comments and recommendations to help clarify some provisions, future-proof the law for technological developments, and more generally to advance access to knowledge for people in Zambia. For example, fair dealing (that is eliminated in the Bill) should be reinstated, a provision on contract override (that safeguards exceptions from contract terms) should be introduced, provisions on library lending and exhaustion of the distribution right should be clarified, and termination of copyright assignment should be broadened to also grant authors an unwaivable right to terminate after a set number of years.

In our comments, we also responded to a submission on the Copyright Bill, 2025 by the International Federation of Reproduction Rights Organizations (IFRRO) and the International Confederation of Societies of Authors (CISAC). IFRRO and CISAC raised many objections to the Bill based, they claimed, on international copyright treaties and best practices but are in fact just a reflection of their preferred policy outcomes.