Slashdot Mirror
Diary of Anne Frank Subject To Copyright Dispute (theguardian.com)
Bruce66423 writes: The Diary of Anne Frank, a Jewish teenager killed by the Nazis whose writing survived in the Amsterdam building where she had hidden, is causing problems. It has been 70 years since she died, making it public domain by European law. A French academic has made it available online with profits going to charity. However, the Anne Frank Fonds, the foundation established by Anne’s father Otto Frank, claims that: “Otto Frank and children’s author and translator, Mirjam Pressler, were inter alia responsible for the various edited versions of fragments of the diary” in 1947 and 1991. They add: "the copyrights to these adaptations have been vested in Otto Frank and Mirjam Pressler, who in effect created readable books from Anne Frank’s original writings."
They can't help themselves.
TWO diversity stories this week? Sheesh, we get it, white people are collectively Hitler. Can we move on from this now?
isn't it Anne Frank? or have i been an idiot about that this whole time.
Ice Cream has no bones.
- The original is public domain, someone is making it available which is entirely legal.
- Someone else has copyright on the adaptation, the adaptation isn't being published as public domain.
Why would the adapters claim copyright on the original by virtue of its adaptions? If that were the case, numerous people would be able to claim copyright on all biblical manuscripts or someone claiming copyright on papyrus artifacts or stone tablets at museums.
Custom electronics and digital signage for your business: www.evcircuits.com
I was so much looking forward to the zombie version of the Diary of Ann Frank. Nothing spices up a public domain story like Nazi zombies.
The book was published in Dutch in 1947 and copyright has expired. The French academic has published the DUTCH text.
It's the *DEATH* part that's important. If Anne Frank wrote it, then its public domain, if her father wrote it (with a translator) then its not.
However why would a translator be involved in a book in the original Dutch?
The Anne Frank foundation is saying "this is a fraud, it wasn't really Anne Franks diary".
This part:
> "the copyrights to these adaptations have been vested in Otto Frank and Mirjam Pressler, who in effect created readable books from Anne Frank’s original writings."
Is misleading, show me where Anne Frank vested copyright in her writings to her father? Show me the contract and if there isn't one then she didn't.
Clearly this is an issue, because a publisher will tack on a young person as 'co-author' simply to extend copyright. The copyright needs to be some flat time since publication, which is a known date. e.g. 70 years period.
Christ fuck this is goddamn history.
... greed destroys history.
We already have this shenanigans with early 8-bit software lost to the annuls of time because of some bullshit copyright that we're not allowed to preserve for fear that someday, somewhere, some company will want to try to "leverage" archaic Imaginary Property.
The first time I read Ann Frank (masturbation scene omitted) was in 5th grade. It was OK. The next time I read it was in 6th grade, then 7th grade, did the play that year too, then once again in 9th grade... At that point I fucking hated Ann Frank and was almost glad she died! At least I got to reuse most of my essays and notes. Likewise I skipped most of the out of class reading assignments...
There is something wrong with English Literature classes in Americans schools when you constantly do Ann Frank and Helen Keller every year. It's almost as bad as my 3 of the 4 American History classes (8th, 11th, Freshman University) I had that never touched on events like the Civil War, Spanish American War, or WW2 but focused and centered around civil rights for blacks and women... Come to think of it, I don't believe I've ever had a single class on the Civil War or WW2... But I've done MLK I Had a Dream so much, it was even on my SAT reading passages!!!
I digress. Fuck Ann Frank, that stupid deaf, dumb, and blind girl!
Jewish tears over shekels. Old story.
The debate over whether editors have a copyright interest in a given work is not a new debate. What is different about this case is that the author could not have any say over how her works were edited or say over whether her writings should have been published in the first place. Most of the edits done were to remove personal family information or mundane aspects of Anne's life. Because most of the edits were removing information, I'd suggest that Otto could not be considered an author. Indeed, in all the copies I have seen published, none of them credit Otto or Mirjam as co-authors. While they may have some copyright claim previously, those copyrights ended with the life of the author plus 70 years, not editor plus 70 years, and not publisher plus 70 years.
How is this story related to I.T. or tech?
I've seen a lot of "charities" that are family controlled and pay amazingly high executive salaries. At the same time, the workers make near min. wage or volunteer their time. Another trick is to have the charity pay for meals, flights, leased cars, etc. for the executives.
I would want to see the full, actual financials of this charity before I have an opinion.
Why is it a surprise to anyone that the Anne Frank Fonds is trying to jew people out of their money with copyrights?
> greed destroys history
In this case, the dispute is between the Anne Frank Foundation, which gives all proceeds to charity, and someone who wants to publish it online at no charge. I guess if you call giving money away to UNICEF "greed" ...
Last month, a court ruled on this case. Under Dutch copyright law, a work first published posthumously before 1995 remains protected for 50 years after the initial publication. It was first published in 1986, so protection ends 50 years later, in 2036.
The original diary, and any direct quotations from it that show up in edited editions, are in the public domain (in Europe)
Editions consisting only of quotations from the original, such as "censored" editions, are in the public domain.
Editions which have copyright-able creative content added by someone else are the works of more than one author and the death of Anne Frank 70 years ago doesn't put the entire work in the public domain, just those parts that are direct quotations or non-copyright-able changes. These are similar to musical arrangements - the authorship of the arrangement is shared.
Translations generally get a fresh copyright (well, at least those done by professional human translators - which is almost certainly true here), so they aren't automatically in the public domain. Short excerpts from a translation where there is only one reasonable way to translation the original probably are in the public domain, as there was no creativity involved in translating that short section. However, anything longer than a few sentences and excerpts longer than a few words can be translated multiple ways and the translator probably has a copyright interest. A machine-translation or an "algorithmic" translation done by a human which has only one possible outcome (basically, a "human computer" doing the translation) very likely does not have a fresh copyright.
Here's the rub:
I don't know if the actual original manuscripts are available for inspection. If they are not, then anyone re-publishing any published materials is taking a big legal gamble.
Disclaimer: I am not a lawyer.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
I blame Disney, and anybody who gives them money like people going to see Star Wars.
The Diary of Anne Frank, a Jewish teenager killed by the Nazis whose writing survived in the Amsterdam building where she had hidden, is causing problems.
Spoilers! T_T
Didn't she die of Typhus after Nazis marched her back into Germany as they were retreating?
If that were the case, numerous people would be able to claim copyright on all biblical manuscripts
Bible translators routinely enforce copyright in their translations. This is why the World English Bible (WEB) project exists, to produce a revision of the pre-1923 ASV into contemporary English and license it under CC0.
As a sidenote: Hitler's Mein Kampf has passed into the public domain last year without too much of a fuss.
That Anne Frank's diary is currently mired in copyright disputes thus could be seen as a kind of very painful irony.
Site & blog: http://www.mayaposch.com
Just let them argue. While we wait for them to decide who should own the world, here are links to the diary.
http://c3jemx2ube5v5zpg.onion/?document=view&id=899 (dutch)
http://c3jemx2ube5v5zpg.onion/?document=view&id=903 (german)
http://c3jemx2ube5v5zpg.onion/?document=view&id=900 (english)
u are welcome.
Than long enough Greed of corporation and Jews are a close race.
If they win the copyright case then copyright is forever.
Just add a comma somewhere in the text every 69 years or take it back out after another 69 years etc. etc.
The Diary of Anne Frank is a propaganda piece; work of fiction. Let's stop treating it like it is quality literature.
If anything that needs to be in the public domain for the sake of the public, it is Anne Frank's Diary. Shame on these greedy people!
And I say Anne Frank estate is greedily milking gullible folks with whatever it lifts from her sad history. They even openly admit her diary is not authentic but rather spruced up by her very uncle. Her aura of holiness has been irreparably tarnished by greed, money, and outright lies.
Would content that was common (verbatim copy) to both the 1947 and 1983 editions be considered "first published" in 1947?
Assuming yes, then copyrights on the common content would likely expire based on either the 1944 authorship under 1944 laws or 1947 publication under 1947 posthumous-publication laws, probably whichever one gave a later expiration.
Disclaimer: I am not a lawyer and I don't play one on the Internet.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
A translation almost always requires human creative input (computer and "by-the-numbers" algorithmic translations and translations where there is only 1 reasonable translation are likely exceptions).
A typeset letter-for-letter re-publication of ancient manuscripts should have no additional copyright, at least not in any sane copyright regime. Bear in mind that adding punctuation marks and spaces is, in many cases, a creative endeavor.
Disclaimers:
* I am not a lawyer.
* I am not claiming that any modern copyright regime is sane.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
A typeset letter-for-letter re-publication of ancient manuscripts should have no additional copyright
A publisher doesn't have to publish the manuscripts at all; it can instead hoard them as trade secrets and publish only edited versions. Or it can take advantage of extended copyright terms that some countries apply to posthumous first publication, as AthanasiusKircher suggests.
Frank's original included significant discussion of all the other things that a girl going through puberty tends to experience - including sex drive and masturbation (and how this is affected by the kind of conditions she was living in).
Those bits are usually left out of the version used in schools, which is the only version most Americans have ever read - which is a bloody tragedy.
If her masturbation is a bloody tragedy, then I can understand why they abridged it. That's just gross.
I can't speak for Europe, but in the USA, copyright was not automatic until relatively recent times.
For awhile in the 20th century, US copyright was "almost automatic" - you had to either mark it (c) or register it within a few years of first publication or it would fall into the public domain.
I assume something similar is/was true for the country or countries in Europe where the diary was published in its various editions.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
Change the copyright term retroactively to 10 years with two possible 10-year extensions (the first one quite reasonably priced, the second quite expensive to prevent frivolous extensions) and this won't be a problem. Remember, since people holding copyrighted works saw their investments diminished in value because of retroactive copyright extensions, in many cases delaying public domain status until after their own deaths, a retroactive copyright term reduction should also be without compensation.
When the copyright term is "forever minus a day", live every day like it's the last.