National Library of Australia will begin the digitisation of a major newspaper from each state to be published on line in "early 2008" for viewing free of charge.

Press release (PDF):

The National Library of Australia announces that it has entered into a contract with Apex Publishing to support a major newspaper digitisation program which will commence later this year.

The Library will use Apex's services to build a database covering the period 1803 to 1954 using one major newspaper from each state and territory.

The Library expects to offer, from early 2008, a new online service to enable full text searching of these newspapers and viewing of the content free of charge.

No details on whether images from the newspapers will be made available. I'd love to see photographs and even images of adverts from through the ages. OCR will be used to make text searchable.

The article in the newspaper I spotted this in says that 1954 is the "copyright cut-off" date. I'm not sure how they figure that out. I believe copyright in Australia is 50 years. Why not 1958? (SMH article)

Wikipedia clears up the 1955 issue:

Copyright expiration in Australia is generally either 50 or 70 years after a work was created. The law has evolved over the years, and photographs are treated differently to other published work. Generally, anonymous works pre 1955 are no longer copyright. If the author is known it is 50 years after the author's death if pre 1955 or 70 years if post 1955.

Copyright for works other than photographs are based on when the creator dies, while photographs are public domain if taken before 1955.

... although I don't read that as blanket "out of copyright" for entire newspapers. Surely most of the writers are still alive or died less than 50 years ago and are identifiable?

Therese Rein is not the leader of the opposition and isn't in the running for Prime Minister. She's probably not even a member of the Labor Party. In fact, I wouldn't be the least bit surprised if she voted Liberal.

Who cares. I wonder if the media would have been as rabid over this issue if Therese were Kevin's sister, brother or mother?

Rudd defends wife over pay contracts:

Asked whether he'd been a bit tough on other small businesses over their behaviour, Mr Rudd said this had been "a pretty soul searching experience for both of us".

He said Labor's position had not been about what individual businesses did so much as the laws under which they operated.

The point Kevin should push is that companies will operate under any government contract laws to their maximum advantage and no-one would expect any less. Any unfair contacts that are allowed under the current laws only prove the laws need to be changed.

BTW, every contract I've ever signed has said I might need to work a "reasonable amount of overtime without compensation". I'm not saying it's a good thing, it just isn't unusual.