The legal deposit procedure for online publications in Spain

Legal deposit in Spain takes place in conservation centres which are the National Library of Spain (Biblioteca Nacional de España) and the facilities designated by the Autonomous Communities. When it comes to digital publications, the conservation centres will decide which websites and resources will be captured and deposited to be conserved. A legal deposit number will not be assigned to the online publications. There are two ways to access the legal deposit:

  • Freely accessible digital publications. The conservation centres direct web robots to automatically capture information. The editor or producer of a website and other publications freely accessible online must allow the conservation centres to collect the information.
  • Restricted access to digital publications. In this case, an editor of the website is obligated to facilitate the collection of information by providing the conservation centres with the passwords to access and reproduce the contents or websites or facilitate its transfer through communication networks or some other medium.

For digital publications in tangible form, or that have their contents reproduced in a book in a physical format, it is noteworthy that the tangible deposit does not exempt it from the online deposit. In this regard, the procedure for the legal deposit of a digital publication that is present in tangible form is the same as the provisions of Law 23/2011, 29 July 2011.

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Please note that this article is not intended to provide legal advice.

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