Staff Papers

Legal Deposit of Music

A paper prepared by Peter Haddad for the Music Reference Group July 1996.


Legal deposit is a requirement, binding on publishers, and enforceable by law, to deposit with one or more designated institutions a copy or copies of their publications or publications. The primary purpose of legal deposit is the preservation of the nation's cultural heritage. Other secondary purposes may include listing in national bibliographies, bibliographic control, provision of statistical information on publishing, and provision of universal access to published information. In some countries, though not in Australia, legal deposit is connected with copyright protection.


Legal Deposit Institutions in Australia

Australia has legal deposit legislation at both the national and state levels. The current Australian legal deposit law is section 201 of the Copyright Act, 1968 and amendments. A clause in the Act enables the states and territories to enact their own legal deposit laws, and most of them have done so.

Designated depository institutions in Australia are: the National Library of Australia, the State Library of New South Wales, Parliamentary Library of New South Wales, University of Sydney Library, State Library of Queensland, Parliamentary Library of Queensland, State Library of South Australia, Parliamentary Library of South Australia, State Library of Victoria, Library and Information Service of Western Australia and the State Library of Tasmania.

The coverage of materials eligible for legal deposit varies from the national level to state level, and differs slightly between states. This overview will concentrate on the legal deposit of printed music and sound recordings in various formats. Networked information (which may also have a sound component) is not covered by any current deposit legislation in Australia.

National Legislation

(a) Printed music

Printed music is eligible for deposit with the National Library of Australia. The Copyright Act, 1968 defines library material as a book, periodical, newspaper, pamphlet, sheet of letter-press, sheet of music, map, plan, chart or table, being a literary, dramatic, musical or artistic work or an edition of such a work ... The publisher of any such library material published in Australia, and in which copyright subsists under the Act, is required within one month after publication, to deliver a copy of the material at his own expense to the National Library.

Amendments to the legal deposit provisions of the legislation have been sought by the National Library of Australia. In its joint submission to the Copyright Law Review Committee, prepared with the National Film and Sound Archive in 1995, revision of the legislation to include microforms, audio-visual materials of all kinds and electronic publications, both networked and artefactual (eg CD-ROM), or formats yet to be developed was proposed. This, if implemented, would capture on-line music scores.

Australia's main centres of commercially published music are in Sydney and Melbourne. Major music publishers in Australia are routinely contacted by the National Library, and made aware of their obligations under the act. Compliance is reasonable among major publishers, but lesser publishers often do not make contact with the National Library, and need to be followed up. The number of items deposited with the National Library in 1993/94 was 427. In 1994/95 it fell to 164. In 1995/96 156 items were deposited. The amount of music published in Australia is undoubtedly higher, and resources within the Library's Australian Collection Development Unit are being directed to securing an improved supply through deposit and purchase.

The National Library of Australia has also expressed interest in becoming the Australian agency for the assigning of International Standard Music Numbers (ISMN). Although a number of music publishers currently use International Standard Book Numbers to uniquely identify their titles, the use of ISBNs for sheet music has always been proscribed by the International ISBN Agency. International Standard Music Numbers will fulfil the same function as ISBNs but will be useful, if widely adopted, in keeping track of one segment of music publishing in Australia. Establishing the ISMN agency is seen by the National Library as a vital step in successfully liaising with music publishers to improve the legal deposit situation at the national level.

A remaining area of difficulty is that not all music or music scores are commercially published, but may be made available on demand, as is the case with matrerial from the Australian Music Centre (http://203.13.160.191/~amc/amc.htm) . The Copyright Act 1968 considers publication to have taken place if, but only if, reproductions of the work or edition have been supplied (whether by sale or otherwise) to the public, a definition which would probably allow the National Library to claim a much wider range of material than it currently does.

(b) Sound recordings

Despite the fact that the compulsory deposit of audiovisual materials for preservation and access in appropriate archives is becoming an increasingly common phenomenon internationally, Australian legislation at the national level remains firmly based on traditional print formats, and recorded sound materials are not covered, although some print items with a sound component are deposited as kits.

The most appropriate depository institution for Australian audio-visual materials is the National Film and Sound Archive, established in 1984 with a mandate to increase knowledge, appreciation, use and enjoyment of Australia's screen and recorded sound heritage by acquiring, preserving, and providing access to a national collection of film, television, video, radio and recorded sound materials. At present the Archive has no legislative basis as a depository. It receives videos and CDs as donations from the Video Distributors Associations (VIDA) and the Australian Record Industry Association (ARIA), and it purchases CDs from individuals and independent low-budget companies. In a joint submission with the National Library to the Copyright Law Review Committee, the NFSA has expressed interest in undertaking a depository role for audiovisual material which would be complementary to the Library's role in collecting printed material.

State Legislation

(a) Australian Capital Territory

No legal deposit legislation exists specifically for the Australian Capital Territory.

(b) New South Wales

Legal deposit in New South Wales is governed by the New South Wales Copyright Act, 1879 and subsequent amendments. Although draft legislation for reform and amendment has been prepared, this has not yet come before State Parliament. Materials covered in the Act which is currently in force, include librettos, and sheets of music, but do not include audiovisual materials.

A Premier's Department Memorandum 91-27 Requirements for all NSW Government Publications covers the deposit of all government materials, and defines library material inclusively as books, reports, papers and other documents, periodicals, newspapers, pamphlets, leaflets, manuscripts, films, sound recordings, musical scores, maps, charts, plans, pictures, photographs, prints and other recorded material whether in writing or in some other form, and whether stored on paper, tape, microfilm, microfiche, disc orany other method of information storage.

(c) Northern Territory

Legal deposit legislation is not yet in place in the Northern Territory. The State Library of the Northern Territory attempts, in the absence of legal deposit legislation, to obtain one copy of everything published about the Northern Territory, by a Territorian or in the Territory. Materials collected include books, pamphlets, serials, newspapers, maps, films, records, videos, posters and theatre programmes.

Proposed legislation will cover sheet music, audio cassettes and audio disks.

(d) Queensland

Queensland deposit legislation under the Libraries and Archives Act, 1988 provides for a copy of library material to be delivered to the State Library, and a second copy to the Library of the Parliament of Queensland. The Act specifically mentions printed music, and film, tape disk or other like instrument or thing supplied to the general public and designed to reproduce visual images, sound or information. Such a definition effectually captures most tangible audiovisual works.

(e) South Australia

In South Australia the Libraries Act, 1982 also requires delivery to the State Library and the Parliamentary Library of printed music; and ... record, cassette, film, video or audio tape, disc or other item made available to the public, designed to store and facilitate the reproduction of visual images, sound or information.

The State Library of South Australia's collection development policy notes that the 1989 change to the legal deposit legislation, which oncorporated non-print publications in the definition, has led to an increasingly diverse and developing collection of non-print publications including music, spoken word, feature film and documentary film.

(f) Tasmania

Legal deposit legislation in Tasmania's Libraries Act, 1984 includes printed music and sound recordings and any other matter or thing whereby words, sounds or images are recorded or reproduced. Deposit is with the State Library.

(g) Victoria

The Libraries Act, 1988 governs legal deposit in Victoria, where the State Library of Victoria is the designated institution. Library material is defined to include sound recordings, musical scores and other recorded material.

In its recent draft collection development policy, the State Library reports that legal deposit and other collecting activity have contributed to the Library acquiring a relatively comprehensive collection of music printed in Victoria.

With regard to sound recordings, the State Library's intention is to seek recordings of music written or performed either in Australia, or by an Australian, in all genres (opera, instrumental music, choral music, folk music, rock/pop, jazz, and the soundtracks of major Australian films.

(h) Western Australia

Western Australian draft legislation similarly aims to include print, visual, sound and video materials for deposit with the Library and Information Service of Western Australia.

Legal Deposit Coverage in Australia: a Survey

The purposes of legal deposit are preservation and access. Firm data on the success of legal deposit for music is difficult, if not impossible to obtain, but empirical evidence suggests that it is not as effective as it should be.

The following survey is not intended to be exhaustive. It is based on the National Bibliographic Database, which may result in a somewhat incomplete picture, as not all published music or sound recordings find their way onto the NBD, and not all legal deposit libraries contribute music or sound recording records to ABN. Nevertheless, in the absence of other data, it may serve as an indicator of the present situation.

Two objectives of the case study were:

The NBD was searched for printed music and sound recording titles published in Australia since 1993 (i.e. 1994 to the present). Results were analysed, and are as follows:

(a) Printed music

Number of titles on the NBD:      376 
Number of publishers involved:     87 

Publishers by type of publisher:

Commercial / organisation          66           
Individual / self publisher        21           

Geographical spread of publishers:

Australian Capital Territory        1            
New South Wales                    39           
Northern Territory                  0            
Queensland                          8            
South Australia                     8            
Tasmania                            0            
Victoria                           21           
Western Australia                   8            
Undetermined                        4            

Holdings of Australian music titles 1994-1996

Held by the National Library and the relevant state legal     130          
deposit library                                                            

Held by the National Library but not the relevant state       138          
legal deposit library                                                      

Held by the relevant state legal deposit library but not by    17           
the National Library                                                       

Held by another library or libraries (not legal                90           
depositories)                                                              

Note that many of the 138 items in the second category may also be held by the relevant State Library, but not yet entered on the National Bibliographical Database. Nevertheless, the figures in the last three rows seem to indicate that complete coverage is not being achieved. In addition there is an unknown quantity of printed music published in the last two and a half years (1994-mid-1996) not represented at all on the NBD. The absence of figures for Tasmania and the Northern Territory, and the very low figure for the ACT also suggest that coverage is incomplete.

(b) Sound recordings

Number of titles on the NBD:      279 
Number of producers involved:     129 

The number of sound recordings on the National Bibliographic Database is too small to be used as any indication of the success or otherwise of the current state legal deposit legislation. As most sound recording records give [Australia] as the place of publication, it is not easy to determine whether legal deposit requirements have been met. An additional difficulty in making any assumptions is that few libraries are creating records for sound recordings on the NBD, apart from the State Library of South Australia, the State Library of New South Wales and the Northern Territory Library.


Appendix A - List of music publishers from the survey

Peter Haddad, October 1996.

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