[A2k] M. Geist on Legal Deposit "Centuries-Old Library Program Enters the 21st Century"

[Manon Ress]

--
[ Picked text/plain from multipart/alternative ]
Centuries-Old Library Program Enters the 21st Century

Tuesday January 16, 2007

http://www.michaelgeist.ca/content/view/1612/159/

Appeared in the Ottawa Citizen on January 16, 2007 as Centuries-Old
Library Program Enters the 21st Century

Appeared in the BBC on January 22, 2007 as Preserving Printed and
Digital Heritage

In 1537, French King Francis I launched an ambitious initiative to
collect and preserve all documents published in France.  To achieve
his objective, he enacted a law requiring all publishers to submit
copies of their publications to the Crown. The practice of mandatory
publication deposits, which later became known as legal deposit,
caught on as many countries sought to preserve their heritage by
establishing similar requirements.

Canada introduced mandatory legal deposit in 1953, requiring
publishers to provide copies of all published books to the National
Library of Canada.  Over the past 54 years, the system has gradually
expanded, adding serial publications in 1965, sound recordings in
1969, multi-media kits in 1978, microforms in 1988, CD-ROMs and video
recordings in 1993, and electronic publications on all types of
physical formats in 1995. While enforcement of legal deposit is
viewed as a last resort, the Criminal Code includes provisions for
those publishers that fail to comply.

With little fanfare, the rules for legal deposit have gradually been
adapted to the Internet and digital technologies.  In 2004, the
government granted the Library and Archives Canada, the successor the
National Library, the right to sample web pages in an effort to
preserve noteworthy Canadian websites.  The Internet sampling
provision has been used to gather copies of political party websites
as well as a handful of notable blogs.

As of January 1st of this year, the rules have changed yet again as
Canadian Heritage Minister Bev Oda introduced new regulations to
accommodate the emergence of online publications and to address the
concerns raised by digital technologies that potentially impede access.

The regulations broadly define publisher as any person "who makes a
publication available in Canada that the person is authorized to
reproduce or over which the person controls the content." In order to
avoid thousands of bloggers rushing to submit their blog postings to
the LAC, the regulations do not require publishers to deposit blog
postings, email correspondence or other press releases (though the
LAC has the right to request these documents or such content could be
submitted voluntarily).

Instead, the rules focus on online material that is considered to be
in "publication" form.  The LAC notes that online publications
usually have a distinct title, a specific author or authoring body, a
specific date and are intended for public consumption.  Examples
include books, magazines, annual reports, research papers, and
scholarly journals.

As part of the deposit process, publishers can choose between open
access, which allows the public to view and download the publication
through the Internet, or restricted access, which limits public
access to selected computer terminals at the LAC's main building in
Ottawa.  The LAC encourages publishers to select open access whenever
possible.

The latest changes will require many online-only publishers to begin
submitting their publications to the LAC.  The rules disappointingly
stop short of requiring all publishers to submit electronic versions
of paper-based documents, however.  Such a requirement should be
considered in the future to facilitate the creation of a national
digital library.

The new rules also address mounting concern about the potential
impact of digital locks (known as digital rights management or DRM)
to deny future generations access to the publications in digital
form.  DRM has been viewed as a threat by many within the library
community, who fear that they and their patrons may literally be
locked out of digital works as DRM systems are used to restrict
otherwise legitimate access or become obsolete.

In response, Ottawa has implicitly acknowledged that the DRM-related
concerns necessitate legal intervention.  The regulations now require
publishers to decrypt encrypted data contained in a publication and
to remove or disable systems designed to restrict or limit access to
the publication before submitting it to the LAC.  Moreover,
publishers are required to also provide the LAC with a copy of the
software necessary to access the publication, the technical
information necessary for access, and any "meta-data" associated with
the electronic publication.

These regulations mark the first time that the Canadian government
has stepped in to protect the public interest against the potential
negative consequences of DRM.  Given these new legal deposit program
provisions, thousands of libraries across Canada may soon demand
similar protections for their electronic publication collections,
which now account for as much as 25 percent of library budgets.

The policy goal of legal deposit - namely preservation of a country's
published heritage for present and future generations - has remained
largely unchanged over the past 470 years.  The latest developments
help ensure that the program is as effective in the digital world as
it was in the day of King Francis I.

Michael Geist holds the Canada Research Chair in Internet and E-
commerce Law at the University of Ottawa, Faculty of Law. He can
reached at mgeist@uottawa.ca or online at www.michaelgeist.ca.



************************************************************************
***
Manon Anne Ress
manon.ress@cptech.org,
www.cptech.org

Consumer Project on Technology
1621 Connecticut Ave, NW, Washington, DC 20009 USA
Tel.:  +1.202.332.2670, Ext 16 Fax: +1.202.332.2673

Consumer Project on Technology
1 Route des  Morillons, CP 2100, 1211 Geneva 2, Switzerland
Tel: +41 22 791 6727

Consumer Project on Technology
24 Highbury Crescent, London, N5 1RX, UK
Tel: +44(0)207 226 6663 ex 252 Fax: +44(0)207 354 0607