Summary heading

CRS A1718 - New South Wales Literary Copyright Files.

Function and purpose

Section 51 (xviii) of the Australian Constitution gave the Commonwealth power over ‘copyrights, patents of inventions and designs, and trade marks’. Under the Commonwealth Copyright Act (No 25 of 1905), the Commonwealth assumed control over copyrights in Australia. New copyright was be registered under the Federal system, while existing copyrights previously granted by the various states would remain unaffected, but come under Commonwealth administration. The legislation provided for the creation of a Copyright Office and a Registrar of Copyrights. The new copyright regime came into effect on 1 January 1907.

The files in A1718 appear to have been held separately by the Commonwealth Registrar of Copyrights in New South Wales because they related to the administration of state copyrights after the Commonwealth assumed control of the copyright function. All the copyrights involved were registered in New South Wales’s Register of Copyrights between 1885 and 1907 (these registers are now held as SP1006/7 - Registers of Proprietors of Copyright, literary, dramatic and musical copyrights - Part 1A).

 The files in CRS A1718 fall into two classes:

·       Those relating to the Commonwealth’s processing of applications to assign NSW copyrights to new proprietors after 1907 (Files 196, 329, 341, 542, 879 & 1890) – an action requiring amendment to the original NSW Registers; and

·       Those relating to applications for NSW Copyright made just prior to the Commonwealth Copyright Act coming into force, and which the Commonwealth subsequently registered in the NSW Register of Copyrights (Files 2399- 2402).

It is obvious that this series cannot contain all of the correspondence relating to transactions that fell into these two categories.

Related legislation

Commonwealth of Australia Act (1900) s. 51 (xviii); Copyright Act (1905) 

Using the series

All item titles have been imposed by the National Archives, and have been based on the contents of each file. The original NSW registration number for the copyright has been included to aid in cross-referencing with the original registers. Where a file deals with more than one NSW copyright, this has been noted by way of an item descriptive note.

Physical characteristics

Most of the files consist of forms, correspondence and other materials contained in original file covers printed in black with ‘Trade Mark’ and ‘Correspondence’. These covers have been over-stamped with ‘NEW SOUTH WALES LITERARY &c. COPYRIGHT’. The only identifying information the file covers give is the number of the NSW copyright (without year) stamped on the front (for example ‘2399’). At a later date, each item was placed in a buff coloured manila envelope, stamped with the relevant copyright number and labelled ‘New South Wales Literary Copyright’. 

Since Files 2399 – 2402 contain applications for copyright, these files also contain the relevant ‘exhibit’ – a sample of the work being copyrighted.    

System of arrangement and control

The files appear to have originally been arranged and controlled by their NSW Copyright registration number (minus the year prefix) and this system has been retained.  

Relationships with other records

By virtue of assuming responsibility for administering copyrights granted prior to 1907, the Commonwealth acquired a large number of colonial and state copyright records. One such series significantly related to CRS A1718 is SP1006/7 - Registers of Proprietors of Copyright, literary, dramatic and musical copyrights - Part 1A. The copyrights dealt with in the CRS 1718 files are recorded in these registers.

Literary and dramatic copyright registered under the new national system from 1907 onwards can be found in CRS A1336 - Applications for Literary and Dramatic Copyright (with exhibits).

Finding aids

A Nation’s Imagination by Merilyn Minell is a comprehensive research guide to copyright records held by the National Archives. Copies of this guide are available in National Archives reading rooms, and can be viewed online at: http://www.naa.gov.au/publications/research_guides/pdf/copyright/copyright.pdf

Series history

This series was transferred to Archives from the Patents Office, Canberra in 1968. The series was formerly accession AA1968/94.

Over the past few years, considerable work has been done on arranging and describing the various copyright series in custody. Work was done on CRS A1718 in July 2005. This involved repackaging the items in acid free wallets and containers, cancelling duplicate item registrations and ‘unknown’ items generated through lending activity, and re-writing this series note.

The item with control symbol 1446 was added to the series in July 2005. During preservation work, this item was found in A1336 - Applications for Literary and Dramatic Copyright (with exhibits). Being correspondence regarding the issuing of a certified extract from the colonial NSW Copyright register, the item clearly did not originally belong to this series. The item was referred to the Arrangement and Description Section for positive identification. After examining the item, it was decided that it more properly fitted into CRS A1718. This was based on similarities between it and existing items in A1718 in terms of subject matter, content dates, entities involved in the correspondence, the file numbering and the item’s physical appearance. The item was registered as an item in CRS A1718 in July 2005 with the control symbol 1446.  

End notes