[LINK] RFC: Digital Heritage / Compulsory eDeposit

[Roger Clarke]

A model has been proposed to extend the legal deposit obligation in 
s.201 of the Copyright Act.

"The Government is seeking views on proposed changes that would 
modernise the current system to extend to electronic documents by 
empowering the Director-General of the National Library to request 
certain electronic material to be deposited".

The Copyright Section of AG's is doing it, rather than the Office of 
the Arts, and that Section has historically been extraordinarily 
conservative;  so some pushing is likely to be needed to get this 
over the line.

It appears that this was announced on 7 March, but the only place 
I've seen it was in 1 column-inch of The Canberra Times Saturday 
Books column - not a place many of us can be relied on to notice it 
...

Written submissions are required by 14 April 2012.


Sources:

The AG's Media Release is here:
http://www.attorneygeneral.gov.au/Media-releases/Pages/2012/First%20Quarter/7-March-2012-Preserving-Australia%27s-digital-heritage.aspx

The AG's home-page is here:
http://www.ag.gov.au/Consultationsreformsandreviews/Pages/Extending-Legal-Deposit.aspx

The Consultation Paper is only 6 pp. in total, but it's in a big 
file: 
http://www.ag.gov.au/Consultationsreformsandreviews/Documents/Legal%20Deposit%20Consultation%20Paper%20CLIENT%20COPY.PDF 
(PDF)
http://www.ag.gov.au/Consultationsreformsandreviews/Documents/Legal%20Deposit%20Consultation%20Paper.DOC 
(.doc)


Key Quote:

"The proposed model for an extended scheme distinguishes between 
offline physical format electronic publications and online electronic 
publications.  Essentially, the current mandatory deposit obligations 
would be extended to physical format electronic publications, while 
online electronic publications would be subject to a deposit on 
demand basis.   [CD-ROMs, DVDs]

"A reason for making a distinction between two classes of electronic 
publications is that this recognises the differences between material 
in a physical form and material in a virtual form and tailors the 
deposit requirements accordingly.  It also implements a selective 
scheme for online material, recognising the large volume of material 
that is potentially eligible for inclusion in the legal deposit 
scheme"  ...  "includes: scholarly e-journals, e-magazines, ephemeral 
publishing such as e-zines, online newspapers, e-books, blogs, 
websites, and conference proceedings".


Quick reactions:

1.  One distinction is format-based, whereas the other is content- or 
market-based.  Is that wise?

2.  What about direct acquisition by the NLA, as Pandora does now? 
Shouldn't the NLA have the capacity to download, keep and make 
available;  and use that as the primary mechanism, reserving 
demand-based deposit where the material can't be reaped that way or 
that kind of download is unsatisfactory (e.g. unduly expensive, 
unduly time-consuming, results in poor quality)?


-- 
Roger Clarke                                 http://www.rogerclarke.com/
			            
Xamax Consultancy Pty Ltd      78 Sidaway St, Chapman ACT 2611 AUSTRALIA
                    Tel: +61 2 6288 1472, and 6288 6916
mailto:Roger.Clarke at xamax.com.au                http://www.xamax.com.au/

Visiting Professor in the Faculty of Law               University of NSW
Visiting Professor in Computer Science    Australian National University