This series consists of Artistic Copyright files from 1907 to 1969.

Prior to 1 January, 1907, the date on which the Commonwealth Copyright Act of 1905 (No. 25 of 1905) came into effect, copyright was regulated by the laws of the separate States. The Act left unaffected existing rights under State laws but transferred the administration of them to the Commonwealth and created a Copyright Office and a Registrar of Copyright. The Act of 1905 was repealed and replaced by the Act of 1912 which was subsequently amended, the Copyright Act 1912-1963 being repealed by the Copyright Act 1968, with no provision for the registration of copyright remaining thereafter.

The provisions of the Copyright legislation included requirements to submit an application for the registration of Copyright to the Registrar, with the appropriate fee and a copy of the work in question. The Registrar, if satisfied, issued a certificate of registration.

Most items consist of an envelope bearing the registration number (allocated on application) and a folder (form 2) showing the number, the applicant's name and a summary of action taken. Within the folder are the application for registration (the form depending on the type of copyright), the statement of address (form 9), a copy of the work (outsized items were stored separately), the examiner's report and related correspondence.

The range of applications to register included photographs, drawings, cards, prints, paintings, statues or models and objects.

Because of the physical form of the series, set numbers have been allocated as follows:

Set 1 Files: mostly containing exhibits as well as registration documents, usually consisting of the application for registration, statement of address, carbon from the form notifying registration, a copy of the work (unless outsize when they were stored separately), the examiner?s report and related correspondence. The examiner?s reports display a certain pedantry: sometimes understandable when requiring occupation and date of making to be inserted; at other times less so, as in 6972 when the applicant, cartoonist Anthony Rafty, was requested to change the description from ?Cartoons? to ?Series of Comic Sketches? for a printed sheet of individual coloured drawings with dialogue, related only by their appearance together and a theme of wartime larrikinism. It is not immediately obvious where the examiner made his distinction between ?cartoon? and ?comic sketch?. The sheet resembles others in the collection intended for postcards, although there is no indication that this was the intention in Rafty?s case.

Set 2 Numbered exhibits: generally outsize and of varying physical form, hence their storage at more than one location. Numbers 1 - 18 require Conservation approval to be viewed, and most of the remaining items in the set are held in the cold storage vault which is opened only on Tuesdays. Material retrieved from there then needs approximately 48hrs to return to room temperature before it can be distributed to researchers. Among the outsize items are several billboard posters including one advertising a cricket test South Africa v NSW in 1910 (1983), and several photographic panoramas. As not all items are stored in the main repository, it is necessary to order even those items not held under special storage conditions well in advance as retrieval from secondary storage facilities is less frequent than from the principal repository.

Set 3 Unnumbered exhibits. These are items for which no direct link to registration documents has been established.

The material registered ranges over all types of material, often in sets: photographs from portraits to panoramas; paintings; drawings; cards; panels; lithographs; bromides; post cards; prints; posters; designs for labels and advertising; zinc etchings; statues; models; and other artistic works. With items such as paintings and sculptural works, the exhibit is often a photograph, sketch or model of the original.