Legal deposit
Legal deposit (also termed ‘dépôt légal’ or ‘mandatory deposit’) is a statutory provision which obliges publishers to deposit copies of their publications in libraries in the country in which they are published. The principle of legal deposit is established in international convention and in the national legislation of many countries, and aims to ensure that access to a nation's published cultural material in libraries and archives is preserved.
Increasingly, material is being published in digital form: this material needs to be collected and preserved to ensure a complete record of a nation's published cultural material. The existence of networks, and the ease with which digital information may be distributed and copied, potentially enables multiple accesses to a single deposited piece of digital information. If legal deposit is applied to digital information, the protection of publishers' rights and investments needs to be considered. Information which is available online poses a further challenge as there is no physical item to 'deposit'.
Legal deposit legislation in many countries predates the current information age and requires a new legal framework in order to encompass digital publications. The complications associated with the collection and control of electronic materials, together with the lack of a comprehensive legal model, have made drafting appropriate legislation problematic and slow. Major issues to be considered include copyright, preservation requirements, public access, scope of coverage, method of collection, protection of publishers' rights, penalties, and implementation of revised legislation.
Countries that have enacted legislation that covers all forms of digital publication (physical format and online), or that have a legislative process in train to accomplish this, include the following:
- Canada
- Denmark (static online publications)
- New Zealand
- Norway (static online publications)
- South Africa
- United Kingdom
Countries that have legislation in place that currently applies to physical format but not online digital publications, include the following:
- Austria
- France
- Germany
- Sweden
The legislation from these countries can be used as a guide or model by other countries wishing to amend their own Legal Deposit laws. More specific information about national approaches is available in the country entries that follow.
Other information that follows which will also assist national libraries considering action to amend their legislation includes:
- Guidelines on preparing proposals
- Survey reports on the Legal Deposit status and intentions of countries
- Discussion papers on issues associated with extending legal deposit to digital publications
- Case studies and experiences of specific countries in implementing revised legislation.
Internationally, voluntary deposit schemes are also being negotiated between national libraries and publishers as a means of collecting digital publications where legal deposit legislation is not in place. Current trends suggest that in some instances these voluntary codes will become permanent, especially where governments prove reluctant to change laws and if legal deposit is afforded a low priority for amendment. The Netherlands does not have any legal deposit laws, having always relied on voluntary deposit arrangements which have also been negotiated for digital information. Other voluntary schemes currently operate or are under development in Canada, Germany, the United Kingdom and Australia. In addition, a model code has been developed by the Conference of European National Librarians and the Federation of European Publishers to facilitate the drafting of locally-endorsed voluntary deposit arrangements.
Some specific information about legal deposit of digital publications which relates to individual countries has been collected on this site:
Australia | Austria | Canada | Denmark | Finland | France | Japan | The Netherlands | New Zealand | Norway | South Africa | Sweden | United Kingdom | U.S.A. |
Under the Copyright Act, 1968, s. 201 (and various State Acts), one copy each of library materials published in Australia must be deposited with the National Library of Australia and the appropriate State library. For the purposes of Section 201, library material is defined 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'. The Copyright Amendment (Digital Agenda) Act 2000, which came into effect on 4 March 2001, made no changes to these legal deposit provisions.
Current Commonwealth statutes do not cover electronic publications, therefore, although some States have legislation which includes some components of this category. No state has legislation which covers networked information, although relevant Acts in Queensland, South Australia, Tasmania and Victoria define library materials more inclusively. In Tasmania, electronic publications and web pages are included in the broad definition of 'records' that are required for deposit under Section 22 of the Libraries Act 1984. These are stored and made accessible through the State Library of Tasmania's Our Digital Island website.
To cover the gap in federal legal deposit law, the National Library of Australia has implemented an interim Voluntary Deposit Scheme for Electronic Publications, together with a Policy on the Use of Australian CD-ROMs and Other Electronic Materials Acquired by Deposit, which strictly controls access to these publications, in recognition of the interests of publishers.
Prior to these initiatives, in 1995, the National Library and the National Film and Sound Archive made a joint submission to the Copyright Law Review Committee seeking:
- endorsement of the principle of legal deposit
- recognition of the principle of selection by the depository institution
- the extension of the scope of publications covered by legislation to include all electronic formats
- the extension of the definition of the term "publication".
In February 1999, the Copyright Law Review Committee released its report, Simplification of the Copyright ACT 1968. Part 2. Categorisation of subject matter and exclusive rights, and other issues. Legal deposit is dealt with as Issue 13. The following were among the numerous recommendations relating to legal deposit:
- the definition of 'library material' be broadened to include audiovisual materials, and materials in electronic form
- deposit of all materials remain compulsory
- the National Library and the National Film and Sound Archive should not need to seek the authorisation of the copyright owner with respect to the storage of deposited material
- under the revised scheme deposited materials be made available on the basis of restricted access; hard copy and electronic material should only be available for inspection at the repository institution
These recommendations, however, as they apply to legal deposit, were not incorporated into the Copyright Amendment (Digital Agenda) Act 2000.
In Austria, new media legislation (Novelle zum Mediengesetz) was enacted in September 2000, which broadens legal deposit provisions to include physical format digital materials. The new laws were not extended, however, to cover the deposit of online and networked digital material. In response to this legislative gap, the AOLA (Austrian Online Archive) project has been established to investigate the challenges associated with the collection and archiving of online publications. The system, which is being developed by the Austrian National Library and the Technical University of Vienna's Department of Software Technology, will archive snapshots of Austrian webspace through periodic harvesting of publicly available websites.
Legal deposit in Canada is covered in the National Library Act and the National Library Book Deposit Regulations, 1995. The original legislation applied primarily to books but has been extended over the years to include serial publications, sound recordings, multimedia kits, microforms, video recordings, CD-ROMs and, in 1995, to other electronic publications issued in physical formats. There are a number of legal and copyright issues that need to be resolved before the legislation can be applied to online electronic documents. Such documents are covered by the very broad definition of 'books' in the Act; however the issue of concern is whether they qualify as being 'published'.
In 1994-95, Canada conducted an Electronic Publications Pilot Project (EPPP) to examine the issue of the deposit of online electronic publications. After completion of this project and recommendations by the project team, the National Library has continued to collect electronic publications on a voluntary deposit basis. The emphasis is on publications not available in any other format.
Denmark's Act on Copyright Deposit of Published Works came into effect on 1 January 1998, replacing the former Copyright Deposit of Printed Matter to Public Libraries Act, 1927. Under the revised legislation, all published material is subject to legal deposit, regardless of the production technique or type of carrier. To encompass emerging technologies, the emphasis of the legislation has shifted from printers of documents to publishers of documentary materials in the broadest sense, including physical format digital and static internet publications. As some technical and copyright issues remain unresolved, dynamic online electronic documents have not yet been specifically included in Danish law.
The Royal Library of Denmark acts as the deposit institution for Danish maps, electronic products and internet publications. A legal deposit registration system for downloading deposit documents has been created in collaboration with UNI-C, a government data research institute. Publishers supply details of electronic products being submitted on deposit to the system, from which the Royal Library extracts internet addresses for the materials and downloads them into a secure database. The downloaded material is viewable only on a stand-alone computer in the Library and cannot be copied by users.
Finland's current Legal Deposit Act was passed in 1980 and covers printed and audiovisual material. During 1997-98, a working group, established by the Ministry of Education, undertook a revision of the Act. The proposed revisions include provisions for the legal deposit of both physical format and online electronic information. However, online electronic information is divided into two categories: material considered to be 'true' electronic publications (such as electronic books and newspaper and periodical articles), which would be required to be deposited; and material available online without restriction, which would be collected automatically by harvester. The Report of the Committee Preparing the Legal Deposit Act was issued in 2000, but further progress on the proposed legislation awaits the issue of a general directive on copyright by the European Union.
French legal deposit legislation was revised in 1992 (the Loi du 20 juin 1992 relative au dépôt légal) and came into force on 1 January 1994. This law requires legal deposit of printed, graphic, photographic, sound, audiovisual and multimedia documents, whatever the technical means of production, as soon as they are made accessible to the public by the publication of a physical carrier. Legal deposit of CD-ROMs has been enforced since 1994, and access policies restrict their use to the Library's stand-alone workstations, with downloading prohibited.
To date, deposit provisions do not cover online electronic publications, and no incentives exist for the voluntary deposit of non-physical format digital materials. In July 2000, the French legal deposit advisory body, the Conseil scientifique du dépôt légal (CSDL), recommended to the Minister of Culture that legal deposit legislation be extended to include online materials. To add further impetus to this recommendation, the Bibliothèque nationale de France's own work in developing a management system for the archiving of electronic materials has also highlighted the need to incorporate digital publications in legal deposit legislation.
In Germany, publishers are obliged to lodge legal deposit copies of their publications in Die Deutsche Bibliothek, including physical format digital materials. Online publications are not yet subject to deposit provisions, but since 1998 have been the focus of a trial three to five year voluntary deposit program, being undertaken on behalf of the Task Group on the Electronic Deposit Library. The interim findings of the Task Group, which is comprised of representatives of the DDB and five German publishing houses, were received positively by the Publishers' Committee of the Börsenverein des Deutschen Buchhandels in March 2000.
As a result of the Task Group's report, guidelines for the deposit of networked digital publications were issued. Collection guidelines, procedures for notification and processing, and methods for dealing with copyright and access issues have been incorporated into the system. In 2001, the DDB is developing an automatic collection process for online materials, and the creation of standard contracts for regulating the use of such deposit materials, to replace the individual agreements which currently exist between the DDB and publishers, is under consideration.
Legal deposit in Japan is covered by the National Diet Library Law, 1948 (as amended 1949). Under this statute copies of Japanese books, pamphlets, serials, musical scores, maps and phonographic records are required to be deposited in the National Diet Library, in return for which publishers are compensated the cost of printing and postage.
In 1997 an expert body was convened to investigate the establishment and administration of a legal deposit system for digital publications. The Legal Deposit System Research Council's final report was issued in 1999, recommending that physical format digital publications be incorporated into legal deposit law, but that networked digital material be acquired selectively and by individual contract. In response to the these recommendations, amendments to relevant deposit provisions were being prepared by the NDL in 2000-2001.
Ahead of any legislative changes, a new Legal Deposit System Council has operated since April 1999 to manage and suggest improvements to the existing deposit scheme. The Council has reported on appropriate compensation for publishers of deposited packaged electronic publications, and has been active in liaising with libraries in Japan and other countries on issues pertinent to the NDL's proposed electronic library, which is expected to be functional in 2002.
The Netherlands is one of the few countries in the world that does not have legal deposit legislation; instead, deposit is voluntary and based on bilateral agreements with publishers. Following an extended period of negotiation, most Dutch printed material is now deposited with the Koninklijke Bibliotheek (National Library of the Netherlands).
In 1993, the Depot van Nederlandse Elecktronische Publicaties (DNEP) project to build a system for the deposit of the country's digital publications was established. Negotiations with the Dutch Publishers Association (NUV) to create a voluntary deposit scheme for electronic publications began in 1994, and storage of offline materials such as CD-ROMs and magnetic and optical disks followed in 1996.
In 1999, a general arrangement for the voluntary deposit of electronic publications was concluded between the Koninklijke Bibliotheek and the NUV, for both online and offline materials. Dynamic databases, whilst covered by the agreement, will not be sought on deposit until technical and other problems associated with their collection, storage and access are fully addressed. At present the arrangement is an experimental one, subject to three-yearly review, with the first evaluation due on or before 1 July 2002.
A tender for the supply of a comprehensive DNEP system, to provide for the long-term preservation and access to electronic deposit materials, was issued in 2000. The enhanced system is expected to be fully operational in 2001, although comprehensive coverage of the nation's digital output is not expected for five to ten years. Access to electronic deposit publications will be available from the Koninklijke Bibliotheek's premises only, as copyright agreements with publishers will not allow the DNEP to provide remote access.
In New Zealand legal deposit is covered in Part 4 of the National Library of New Zealand Te Puna Matauranga o Aotearoa Act 2003 which came into force on 5 May 2003. It replaces the National Library Act 1965.
The 2003 legislation applies to public documents (defined in the Act) issued in print, or electronic (physical format or online) form. It provides for the deposit of physical format documents and for the copying of Internet documents.
Any terms and conditions as to format and public access associated with deposited public documents are specified in a Notice of Requirement issued in the Gazette. Before a Requirement relating to electronic documents is notified, consultation must take place with publishers or their representatives likely to be affected by the proposed Requirement. (Consultation is not required on the deposit of books to which section 30A of the previous Act would have applied if it had not been repealed.)
The Act also permits Library staff to "possess, copy, store in electronic form (whether off-line or on-line), and use" a document given to or made by the Library. In addition, Section 34 (3) of the Act specifies that the Library may make up to three copies of a deposited document available for use by members of the public, on or off the Library's own premises. However, a document must not be made available on the Internet except if it has been made publicly available there by the publisher without restriction. In this case, the Library may make the document available on the Internet for access and use by the public.
The law relating to copyright applies to every deposited document except in the case of copying and making available Internet documents which are treated as exceptions to copyright law.
Until the Requirement relating to electronic documents comes into force, electronic documents in physical format continue to be purchased or obtained by voluntary deposit through standard acquisition processes.
Currently the Library is developing its processes for the selection, acquisition, harvesting, description, storage and provision of access to physical format and online electronic documents. A selection database has been developed and test harvesting of websites has been undertaken. There is still substantial work required to develop the tools for processing websites to meet the criteria laid out by curators for determining and endorsing the final status of the object which is to be archived and preserved.
This work is being done in the light of similar projects underway internationally including the National Library of Australia's PANDORA project (for selective web harvesting), the Royal Library of Sweden's Kulturarw3 project (for whole-of-domain harvesting), the Nordic Web Archive (for whole-of-domain harvesting) and the Library of Congress's Minerva project (for selective web harvesting).
The Norwegian Legal Deposit Act (Pliktavleveringsloven) of 9 June 1989 came into effect on 1 July 1990. The statute applies to printed materials, sound recordings, films, videos, and certain digital publications. Physical format electronic documents and static internet documents are encompassed by the provisions, but dynamic electronic resources are not specifically included. The legislation, which covers any works which can be read, heard, broadcast or transmitted, is written in such a way that it will also be applicable to future electronic formats.
South Africa's Legal Deposit Act, 1997 came into operation on 1 July 1998, and is administered by the Department of Art, Culture, Science & Technology's Subdirectorate of Meta-information. The broad definition of 'document' and interpretation of the term 'medium' enables the Act to apply to electronic publications available in both physical format and online. In the legislation 'document' is defined as 'any object which is intended to store or convey information in textual, graphic, visual, auditory or other intelligible format through any medium …'. A 'medium' is interpreted as 'any means of recording or transmitting information intended for subsequent reading, listening or viewing'. Due to the technical and administrative challenges associated with the deposit of dynamic electronic publications, online electronic materials are presently only subject to deposit when specifically requested by the State Library of Pretoria.
The Legal Deposit Act of 1993 (and 1995 amendment) requires legal deposit of electronic documents available in physical format, such as optical disks. Online electronic documents, like those found on the internet, are not covered by this legislation. A printed report on the collection of online documents was released in January 1999, and in 2000 amendments to legal deposit provisions were discussed as part of a research and development bill (Forskning och förnyelse).
The Royal Library of Sweden instituted the Kulturarw3 (Cultural Heritage Cubed) project in 1996. This project is investigating the long-term preservation of published electronic documents. It approaches the collection of electronic information by actively harvesting as much as possible in the first instance, then weeding out what is not wanted. A special decree by the Swedish government, accepted on May 8, 2002, authorises the Royal Library of Sweden to collect Swedish web sites on the Internet and to allow the public access to the archive within the library premises.
Under the United Kingdom's Copyright Act 1911, publishers have a legal obligation to send one copy of each of their publications to the British Library and five other designated deposit libraries. The statutory requirements do not currently cover digital information, which is why in 1996 the British Library submitted to the then Department of National Heritage proposals for the extension of legal deposit to non-print material.
As a result of these proposals, and following a public consultation process, in January 1998 the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport set up a Working Party on Legal Deposit. The Working Party's report was published in December 1998 and recommended that a code of practice for the voluntary deposit of electronic publications should be drafted, but that in the longer term statutory deposit would be required in order to secure a comprehensive national published archive. The resultant Code of Practice for the Voluntary Deposit of Non-Print Publications came into effect in January 2000, endorsed by the various UK publisher trade bodies and legal deposit libraries. At present, the arrangement only provides for the deposit of microfilms, physical format digital publications and other offline electronic media, but the challenges for the deposit of static and dynamic online publications are also recognised in the guidelines. Before moving towards legislation, the Secretary of State has established a technical group to oversee further work on issues involved, including the testing by publishers and libraries of deposit systems for online publications, and the completion of a feasibility study on secure networking and access control which commenced in 2000.
Taking into account the outcomes of the work of this group, revised legal deposit legislation has been drafted. The Legal Deposit Libraries Bill passed through the House of Commons in July 2003 and will go before the House of Lords in September 2003. The Bill will amend section 15 of the Copyright Act 1911.
In the United States mandatory deposit requirements are found in Section 407 of the Copyright Act of 1976. These provisions are equivalent to the legal deposit laws that operate in other countries. Through the Code of Federal Regulations, certain categories of materials are exempted from deposit requirements. The exemption for material published solely in machine readable form was revoked in 1988, from which time deposit has been required of certain publicly available physical format electronic material, such as magnetic tapes, CD-ROMs and microforms. For CD-ROMs the complete package is required: this includes all accompanying documentation and a printed version if it is available. Voluntary CD-ROM agreements stipulating how the Library can use items deposited in this format were introduced in 1993. Mandatory deposit is not yet applied to online electronic works.
Text last updated: July 2003
Guidelines |
Surveys |
General |
Africa |
Algeria |
Australia |
Austria |
Canada |
Denmark |
Finland |
France |
Japan |
Netherlands |
Norway |
South Africa |
Sweden |
United Kingdom |
United States of America
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European Convention for the Protection of the Audiovisual Heritage and Protocol on the Protection of Television Productions ...
Council of Europe
(Date Created: 06 Feb 2001)
- This convention, which was issued by the European parliament in February 2001, provides for the safeguarding and preservation of European moving image heritage. Parties to the agreement are obliged to introduce legal or voluntary mechanisms for the deposit of audiovisual media in designated archival repositories in their territories. The text is broadly worded so that the legislation will apply to electronic and other new forms of audiovisual expression as they are created.
- http://www.coe.int/t/e/cultural_co-operation/culture/Resources/Referen
ce_texts/Conventions/econpataud.asp
- The legal deposit of electronic publications
Working Group of the Conference of Directors of National Libraries (CDNL)
(Last Updated: 6 Mar 1997)
- This paper suggests guidelines for National Libraries on how to prepare proposals for the legal deposit of electronic publications and how to store and maintain such publications. Included is a summary of developments worldwide and case studies from Canada, France and the USA.
- http://www.unesco.org/webworld/memory/legaldep.htm
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