The legal deposit
Since its creation in 1994, the Tunisian National Sound Archive has been designated as the deposit library that is (or are) entitled to receive a copy of musical sound documents (phonograms); the aim being helping build up a reference collection to be made available to the public, promoting scientific research and contributing to the preservation of Tunisian musical memory and cultural heritage.
Established in Tunisia as of 1977, the legal deposit of phonograms was previously managed by the National Conservatory of Music of Tunis. The first filing of a sound document at the National Sound Archives dates back to 1999. Thanks to the campaigns led by the CMAM to raise the awareness of phonogram producers to the interest of the legal deposit, compliance with this provision went up, then regressed substantially in mid - 2004.
The legislation governing legal deposit and its modalities have been the subject of numerous reforms (1983, 1993, 2011 and 2014); The last one dates back to 2015 with the enactment of Organic Law No. 2015-37 of 22 September 2015), relating to registration and legal deposit (http://legacy.legislation-security.tn/en/node / 37830. This text broadens the scope of the legal deposit to include digital sound recordings published on the web.
This text sets out the nature of the phonograms that must are submitted to the registration and legal deposit procedures, which must be deposited at the Centre for Arab and Mediterranean Music (in this case the sound or musical works), the list of natural or legal persons submitted to the legal deposit, as well as the timing when deposit must be made, It also lays out measures that can be taken if a producer fails to deposit.