Technology of carrying information is ever-changing. The rationale for legal deposit is not. -A framework of a technology- adaptive legal deposit act Vebjørn Søndersrød, legal adviser, National library of Norway
The rationale for legal deposit Originally – censorship and preservation today: preservation of records of cultural and social life The rationale in itself is not influenced by media format or technology; in an ideal world all relevant documents should be covered by legal deposit regulations
A technology adaptive legal act How Norway tried to create a technology- adaptive legal deposit act Subject = Documents that contain generally available information. What is a document?
A technology adaptive legal act (ctd.) Frequent amendments should not be necessary The act was passed in 1989, and has not been amended since Example: digital documents
Todays act and the future Will a technology-adaptive legal deposit act survive the future? We have to hope so, with reference to the study The legal deposit of electronic publications, prepared by a Working Group of the CDNL I believe the answer is yes in relation to the subject of legal deposit
Digital Rights Management and preservation of protected works Preservation requires duplication Recent amendments to the Norwegian copyright act (basis in the EU copyright directive) The fact that legal grounds for duplication exists, is not necessarily enough per se
Conclusion The rationale of legal deposit is by law secured in a way that seems quite robust concerning acquirement of new documents However, In my opinion, the ability to preserve DRM- (or similar) protected works, seems to be under a greater pressure