Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Diary of Anne Frank Subject To Copyright Dispute (theguardian.com)

Posted by samzenpus on from the it's-mine-now-I-take-it dept.

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."

29 of 150 comments (clear)

  1. Where is the dispute? by guruevi · · Score: 5, Interesting

    - 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
    1. Re:Where is the dispute? by Kjella · · Score: 5, Interesting

      The full version has to my knownledge never been published, only the edited versions so I assume that is what is being made available. Now if it was an adaptation that would be copyrighted, like Disney turning old folk tales into movies. But it's not really an adaptation, it's an excerpt at least that is what is claimed. You can't find an old book with a hundred pages, pick ten and say this "adaptation" is copyrighted anew. Once the copyright expires the whole text is passed into the public domain and you can quote any parts you want. So...

      If the published versions are a strict subset of Anne Frank's writings, the copyright is expired. That they published selected diary entries can't prevent others from quoting them too. If they've done more than to retract certain entries and actually edit the diary then yes it's still copyrighted but its authenticity as the literal diary of Anne Frank is compromised. They can't have it both ways, either it is her diary and the copyright is expired or it's a post-war original work of authorship based on her diary, but not both.

      --
      Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
    2. Re:Where is the dispute? by AthanasiusKircher · · Score: 2

      - The original is public domain, someone is making it available which is entirely legal.

      Well, maybe not. According to this, the original manuscripts were never actually published until a critical scholarly edition came out in 1986.

      And apparently under applicable law in 1986, what may matter is not when they were written, but when they were published. Apparently posthumous publication in some circumstances remained under copyright until 50 years after the first date of publication -- the date of the death of the author in this case is irrelevant. This provision about posthumous copyright was dropped in 1995 in the EU, but apparently the law was also written in such a way so as not to diminish any copyright term that went into force before 1995.

      That's the problem with copyright law -- it not only depends on the country, but also exactly when copyright was first granted. Different eras are often under different rules, depending on when the laws changed.

      Why would the adapters claim copyright on the original by virtue of its adaptions?

      Apparently that's NOT what's being claimed here. It's not the adaptation that is the issue, but rather the effective publication date of the original manuscript. Now, I don't know much about the details of the case, but apparently there is some applicable law that has been used to support the arguments of those claiming rights. (By the way, I absolutely agree from a moral perspective that this SHOULD be in the public domain by now. But it may not be under applicable law.)

      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.

      Well, no -- because no one could claim copyright on most biblical manuscripts, since their contents has mostly been published for many centuries.

      On the other hand, for recent scholarly finds, there actually have been cases made for copyright of portions of the Dead Sea Scrolls, for example. In this case, the text required significant deciphering and editing (including lots of interpolation of letters and words, etc.) to make sense of passages. Without a modern edition, the original sources would be meaningless to everyone except experts in ancient writing and languages, so it does makes sense in some cases that modern editions should be granted copyright.

    3. Re:Where is the dispute? by AthanasiusKircher · · Score: 5, Informative

      They can't have it both ways, either it is her diary and the copyright is expired or it's a post-war original work of authorship based on her diary, but not both.

      Actually, that's precisely what they are claiming, and there are valid legal arguments for it under copyright law. Multiple new editions of an old work can be published and may be copyrighted. As someone who has worked on scholarly editions of source materials (though I've never been a primary author on one), there's a lot of original research that often goes into making judgment calls on how to take some handwritten source and turn it into a printed text. In particular, you often have multiple sources (e.g., different drafts, different fragments of manuscripts) which require reconciliation and interpretation.

      I don't know anything about the sources of Anne Frank's diary, though -- but I do know that apparently Anne Frank began rewriting some portions with an intent on publication at some point in 1944. That presumably means that any edition would have to make choices about how to present the sections she originally wrote vs. her redrafted ones for publication, which also may require reconciling elements in the portions which had not been rewritten before her death to make sense with the ones which had been rewritten.

      This may or may not be a straightforward process to put all this together in a format that would be easily accessible and understood by readers. I don't know enough about the sources.

      Nevertheless, what we have here apparently is the following:

      (1) The first edited version was published in 1947 by Otto Frank. I don't know how much editing was done here, but apparently it was more than just selecting entries, given that there would be multiple versions of some entries. The copyright to that is claimed by Otto Frank, who died in 1980, and applicable copyright law for his version thus extends to 70 years after his death.

      (2) The original diaries were finally published in a scholarly "critical edition" in 1986. Under applicable copyright law at that time, posthumous publications were granted a 50 year term after the first PUBLICATION. So, that would extend to 50 years after 1986.

      Thus, yes it is both. It is her diary, but copyright law as of 1986 said what matters in posthumous publication was the date of publication, not when the author died. (That law has since been changed in the EU, but old works still under copyright are grandfathered in.) And it is also a post-war "original" edited work, whose copyright expires at a different date. This is actually quite common for scholarly editions, such as edited publications of correspondence by famous people, etc.

    4. Re:Where is the dispute? by AchilleTalon · · Score: 3, Interesting

      The diary was first published in 1947 in Dutch and in 1952 in English (the American edition). In 1986 a commented version was edited and published and in 2001 5 missing pages were added and published again. The 5 missing pages were removed by Anne's father, Otto, because these pages were showing tension between Otto and his wife and they were showing Anne was not loving so much her mother. These pages were given by Otto before his death to Cornelis Suijk who finally sold them to Anne Frank's foundation for 300 000 USD. Cornelis Suijk was previously director at the Anne Frank's foundation.

      --
      Achille Talon
      Hop!
    5. Re:Where is the dispute? by jabuzz · · Score: 5, Interesting

      At best Otto Frank was Ann Frank's editor. As far as I am aware this is one of a very few cases where the editor is claiming copyright and is thus highly dubious and open to legal challenge.

      The other editor claiming copyright I can think of is Christopher Tolkien.

      A similar dubious copyright claim is that of Lyn Pratchett who attributed as having copyright interests in Terry later books, something again which is legally dubious as she was not responsible for the creation of the books.

    6. Re:Where is the dispute? by silentcoder · · Score: 5, Interesting

      As it stands, the diary as it is generally read in the US is severely abridged. 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.

      Then again - I bet most anti-refugee republicans have read the book while attending school, and I also bet none of them know that the Frank family had applied for refugee access to the USA before the war and been denied... I don't think they realize the irony of having once felt such sympathy with that young victim while now actively campaigning to create a whole new generation of her.

      The few who do would probably think it's hillarious to say something "like thank goodness for people like us then since clearly being a xenophobic asshole leads to the creation of rare and exceptional literature".

      --
      Unicode killed the ASCII-art *
    7. Re:Where is the dispute? by silentcoder · · Score: 2

      > the original manuscripts were never actually published until a critical scholarly edition came out in 1986.
      That doesn't actually matter. Copyright is automatic, and exists from the time of creation - not the time of publication. That's a Berne Convention standard so no signatory country's laws (and that includes all of Europe) can fail to comply with it.

      --
      Unicode killed the ASCII-art *
    8. Re:Where is the dispute? by AthanasiusKircher · · Score: 2

      That doesn't actually matter. Copyright is automatic, and exists from the time of creation - not the time of publication. That's a Berne Convention standard so no signatory country's laws (and that includes all of Europe) can fail to comply with it.

      Look -- I'm not a lawyer, but apparently prior to 1995 there was SOME law that stated posthumous publication fell under different laws. Apparently, that law is no longer in force but previously copyrighted works are grandfathered in. And apparently courts have agreed with this line of reasoning. (I've already said this repeatedly, but just to be clear, I think the length of time on these laws is stupid and the diary should be PD by now... that doesn't change legal arguments here, though.)

    9. Re:Where is the dispute? by argStyopa · · Score: 2

      I think it's hilarious that you turn a discussion about Anne Frank into a an anti-Republican diatribe.

      Quick: do you know the party of the president during WW2, the one that REJECTED refuge-seeking peoples of Europe, including a ship full of children?

      BTW there's a pretty huge gulf between "refugee family with children" and the "single, healthy, male 20-something" 'refugee' that is the individual most reasonable people are rejecting.

      --
      -Styopa
    10. Re:Where is the dispute? by AthanasiusKircher · · Score: 2

      "Scholarly" blah blah blah useless crappy people like you who take other people's work and put it out again and claim YOU hold the rights to THEIR work, NO. That's not copyright. That's the bullshit you spew.

      I probably shouldn't respond to sure a puerile post, but hey, what the heck.

      Look -- first off, **I** have never earned a cent off of claiming any rights off of anyone else's work. The work I did was for a foundation which was tasked with preparing a critical edition of the works of someone (obviously famous) who died hundreds of years ago. This edition required tens of thousands of hours of work investigating thousands of original sources and manuscripts. I was paid for some of the work I did at the time I did it, but I personally don't claim any rights to anything.

      Now, you may not care about any of this work or think it's stupid. But the vast majority of the publications in the project I mention were in publishing manuscript sources that previously had been unavailable to anyone except scholars who would travel to an archive. And many of the sources were in such disarray or had conflicting versions, etc. that it required a significant amount of editorial decision to produce something useful from them.

      Some scholars may find this stuff useful. Some of the previously unpublished works might be found to be interesting and find their way into a more "popular" canon of works. I don't know.

      But I certainly don't claim any rights to any dead person's work. And in this particular case, the work was significantly subsidized by a number of charitable foundations in the interest of getting this work out there. The volumes of the edition don't make any profit either -- it's a non-profit organization, and the money solely went to pay for publishing costs.

      I don't know if any of this is at all relevant to Anne Frank's case -- the more I read about her case, the less I think the legal arguments are valid. To me, it sounds like the Anne Frank foundation (or whatever) is just trying to keep making money off of the stuff, which I find personally offensive too.

      But that doesn't justify a wholesale attack on scholars who are trying to preserve and disseminate valuable works of history and culture.

  2. Re:Oh, no! by 93+Escort+Wagon · · Score: 4, Funny

    I just knew someone would Godwin this discussion...

    --
    #DeleteChrome
  3. Yet more proof ... by UnknownSoldier · · Score: 5, Insightful

    ... 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.
     

  4. Editors are not authors by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

    1. Re:Editors are not authors by AthanasiusKircher · · Score: 4, Informative

      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.

      This is not a unique issue at all. Famous people of the past often have left behind hoards of unpublished papers, correspondence, etc. Many scholars create editions of such things, often long after those people have died -- sometimes centuries later.

      In these cases, it is generally standard that the editor/compiler holds copyright on that edition from the date of publication, rather than anything having to do with the death of the author. Of course the original documents may long ago have become public domain (and hence may be republished freely without permission), but the edition generally requires quite a bit of work to put together. (I admit I know very little about how much was done in the case Anne Frank, though.)

      Indeed, in all the copies I have seen published, none of them credit Otto or Mirjam as co-authors.

      This is the more interesting issue, to me. If these publications actually ascribed the work completely to Anne Frank, even if they were edited, then Otto Frank should be considered more as an editor in the sense of an internal copyeditor at a publishing house that cleans up a manuscript, rather than as a "scholarly" editor who has to make tough decisions about reconciling different versions of texts and how to turn an unedited mess into something comprehensible. The latter is generally entitled to be treated as an "editor" in the formal sense and perhaps granted copyright, but the former is not generally entitled to such protections.

  5. Cynical Question by ebonum · · Score: 5, Informative

    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.

    1. Re:Cynical Question by whoever57 · · Score: 2

      I've seen a lot of "charities" that are family controlled and pay amazingly high executive salaries

      Including a little company that trades under the name "Ikea". But one of Ikea's biggest costs: licensing the "Ikea" name from the Kamprad family.

      --
      The real "Libtards" are the Libertarians!
  6. This seems like a no-brainer by davidwr · · Score: 5, Informative

    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.
  7. Re:money goes to charity. Court ruled ends in 2036 by Dereck1701 · · Score: 4, Informative

    "which gives all proceeds to charity"

    I don't think I've ever encountered a "charity" that didn't skim a fair amount of the money off of the top for someones personal enrichment. It should also be noted that there are apparently two "Anne Frank" charities, The "Anne Frank Foundation" and the "Anne Frank Fund" which have had their own little legal squabbles in the past over the "over-commercialization of Anne’s legacy".

    http://nonprofitquarterly.org/...

  8. Re: Slashdot: News for SJW by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Or more accurately because copyright law has been a part of geek culture since forever? Or have we all forgotten about that? You know, the EFF, the FSF, the DMCA, Lawrence Lessig, open source/free software, copyleft...

  9. Re:money goes to charity. Court ruled ends in 2036 by jrumney · · Score: 5, Informative

    I don't think I've ever encountered a "charity" that didn't skim a fair amount of the money off of the top for someones personal enrichment.

    Things like the former director of the charity selling 7 pages that were handed to him while he was director back to the charity for $300k, for example.

  10. Bible translations are copyrighted by tepples · · Score: 4, Interesting

    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.

    1. Re:Bible translations are copyrighted by laie_techie · · Score: 2

      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.

      I am not a lawyer, but have done some research into the matter. Each translation of the Bible (or other ancient manuscripts) can be copyrighted by the translator. Additionally, each new edition can copyright certain non-textual changes (such as headers, footers, page layout, etc) as well as textual changes (correcting spelling, grammar, punctuation). The 1830 edition of the Book of Mormon is in the public domain, but the LdS Church (under the name Intellectual Reserves, if I remember correctly) has a copyright of the current (2013) edition.

  11. On a sidenote... by Elledan · · Score: 2

    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
  12. Re:money goes to charity. Court ruled ends in 2036 by dbIII · · Score: 2

    I've encountered plenty that don't - you can spot them by looking for unpaid volunteers at the exec level instead of the scams with fatcats on the board leeching millions that you seem to think is the norm.
    Ironically some of the "non-profits" (not actually a charity) who have the task of collecting copyright royalties for artists fit the scam status, there was one in the UK that was a black hole taking money in, not letting it out and paying millions to the directors of the org.

  13. Re:Jews by mlw4428 · · Score: 2

    Except that stereotype was started hundreds of years ago. Jews were fighting persecution from a religious basis when the Holy Roman Empire was around. That stereotype likely came out of "thin air" as just a "reason" (deserved or not) to continue the ongoing dislike of the Jews. It wasn't like one day some people noticed a lot of Jews were greedy bankers and something clicked. It was more like some king probably came up with that idea when they were asked why the Jews continually kept getting slaughtered, he looked around, saw a Jew with two loaves of bread, and said "LOOK AT HOW GREEDY THEY ARE, KILL HIM."

    Hatred often predates stereotypes and allows for easier consumption of the stereotype as it requires close inspection of the hated party without subsequent reflection on your "side's" own similarities.

  14. Re:Jews by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Love that stereotype. For several centuries Jewish people were excluded from every guild and profession with damn few options being left open apart from money lending. So hey, lets hold that against them just because they weren't considerate enough to starve to death in a gutter instead.

  15. Re:Jews by JackieBrown · · Score: 2

    It's because Christians were not allowed to charge interest on loans so they hired Jews to do it for them. It got them around the Rome issue and gave the rich a race of people to hate simply for doing their job.

  16. Re:Jews by N3wsByt3 · · Score: 2

    Sometimes, but mostly not.

    Stereotypes usually DO have some truth to it. These stereotypes can be negative or positive, but there is always a cause for it, and mostly that cause is a trait or behaviour of a certain populace which is - while not done by *everyone* - done by enough people of that group to link the behaviour to that group.

    It's a generalisation (especially if one wants to convey the idea that every last individual of a certain group or populace is exhibiting that behaviour), but one that is not without some element of truth in it, in most cases.

    --
    --- "To pee or not to pee, that is the question." ---