Legal Issues Related to Whole-of-Domain Web Harvesting in Australia

Selective archiving of Web sites in Australia has been under way since 1996. This approach has seen carefully selected sites preserved after site owners granted permission. The labor-intensive nature of this process means only a small number of sites can ever be acquired in this manner. An alternate approach is an automated 'whole-of-domain' capture of sites, which has been undertaken in a number of countries, including Australia. This article considers the existing legal position in taking this approach and looks at how legal deposit and copyright legislation constrains the process. It also considers recent amendments to the Copyright Act to provide more flexibility along the lines of the U.S. fair-use approach and the possible impact these new provisions may have for those involved with large-scale Web archiving in Australia.