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Joseph Goebbels' Estate Sues Publisher Over Diary Excerpt Royalties
wabrandsma writes with this from The Guardian: The estate of Joseph Goebbels, Adolf Hitler's minister of propaganda, is taking legal action against the publisher Random House over a new biography, claiming payment for the use of extracts from his diaries. Peter Longerich's biography of Goebbels is to be published in May (Random House/ Siedler). Longerich, who is the professor at Royal Holloway's Holocaust Research Centre, maintains this case has important censorship implications. 'If you accept that a private person controls the rights to Goebbels' diaries, then – theoretically – you give this person the right to control research,' he said.
Up front confession: haven't read the article, but unless the diaries are in the public domain, isn't this pretty cut and dry? If the diaries are in private hands, they're in private hands and you need permission to use their contents.
A private person controls the rights to Goebbels' diaries until a court of law declares otherwise or they fall into the public domain for some other reason. Courts should have done this in the aftermath of WWII, but Germans wanted these copyrights to remain valid in order to control such writings. The writings could also have come into the public domain as part of some settlement to civil claims against the Goebbels estate. But since neither seems to have happened, the copyright still appears to be valid.
Arguing as if "research" should be exempted from the usual rule of law is particularly embarrassing for a German professor studying the Holocaust, since many atrocities were committed in the Third Reich because German academics considered themselves above the law and got away with it.
If Longerich can't make a convincing argument that these works are in the public domain or that he falls under a well-defined legal exemption, he can join the rest of us and work towards shorter copyright terms, broader fair use exemptions, and less draconian laws. Of course, he could also demonstrate good will by licensing his own works under a CC license.
'Initially, he feared that Schacht would take out an injunction against the book, preventing its publication altogether. Determined to avoid the destruction of any books “on the grounds of a claim from Goebbels”, he agreed to pay her 1% of the net retail price.
He said: “When she wanted to cash in on that agreement, I said that agreement is null and void It’s against the moral rights You haven’t been entitled to sell me any words as those words lie within the Bavarian government.”'
The author agreed to pay a 1% royalty and then reneged when the heir tried to collect. Of course that triggered a lawsuit.
It seems that the bigger problem here is that modern copyright is so unreasonably long, historical documents are still under copyright. Anything over the original 28 year copyright term is really robbing the next generation of history.