Extension of Legal Deposit: Recording Australia’s Online Cultural Heritage
Authors
Abi Paramaguru and Sophia Christou
Research and Policy Officer, Cyberspace Law and Policy Centre, University of New South Wales, Australia. † Postgraduate research student, Faculty of Law, University of New South Wales, Australia. The authors would like to gratefully acknowledge and thank Catherine Bond, Faculty of Law, University of New South Wales and Adam Arnold, University of New South Wales for their invaluable comments regarding this paper.
In 2007 the Government commenced a review into the feasibility of extending the legal deposit scheme to include audiovisual and electronic material – submissions closed in May, 2008. In this paper we examine the history and significance of legal deposit as well as the relationship between legal deposit and cultural and technological change. We focus on the importance of integrating electronic, and specifically online, materials into the national legal deposit system. The current Australian legal deposit scheme is discussed with reference to the 2007 review and subsequent submissions to the review. The relationship between legal deposit and the public domain is analysed, highlighting the ways in which effective deposit schemes can enhance the national public domain. The importance of a flexible and considered approach to developing an appropriate threshold for inclusion of online materials in an extended legal deposit scheme is discussed. Finally, we make some suggestions for ways of implementing an efficient and effective legal deposit scheme that can encompass online materials of cultural value.
