Video footage showing South Africa’s best-loved rugby players naked, tired, scared and embarrassed violates their right to privacy and dignity and is not for public viewing, the Pretoria High Court ruled on Friday.
Judge Pierre Rabie interdicted the organisers of the infamous 2003 Springbok boot camp, Kamp Staaldraad, from publishing or distributing a DVD about the camp in any form.
He ruled that SA Rugby owned the copyright to all visual material found at the training camp, held before South Africa’s disastrous tournament at the 2003 Rugby World Cup in Australia.
Organiser Adriaan Heijns and Jan Steyn were interdicted from infringing SA Rugby’s copyright by making any reproductions or adaptation of the video, or causing it to be seen by the public in any format whatsoever.
Heijns and Steyn were ordered to hand over all the material and DVDs to SA Rugby’s attorneys and to pay all legal costs in the court battle.
The ruling means that visuals from the camp already shown on television and widely published in South African newspapers may not be published again.
Five Springbok rugby players obtained an urgent interim interdict in September to stop distribution of the planned DVD, titled Kamp Staaldraad: The Real Story.
They were thereafter joined by SA Rugby and 19 other top rugby players who asked the court to protect their privacy on a permanent basis.
Rabie said the DVD was anything but flattering for rugby players who were usually shown in a positive light and hailed as national heroes.
The DVD contains numerous scenes showing the players naked from the front. It also shows them dirty, tired, scared and humiliated. Certain scenes created the impression that some had reached breaking point and were clearly traumatised.
None of them had ever agreed to video material of the camp being made public and it is clear that the material should have remained confidential, the judge said. — Sapa