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US Copyright Law Forces Wikimedia To Remove the Diary of Anne Frank (wikimedia.org)
Today, the Wikimedia Foundation announced its removal of The Diary of Anne Frank from Wikisource, a digital library of free texts. According to the United States' Digital Millennium Copyright Act, works are protected for 95 years from the date of publication, meaning Wikimedia is not allowed to host a copy of the book before 2042. Rogers, the Legal Counsel for the Wikimedia Foundation, says this is just one of the many examples of the overreach of the United States' current copyright law. He goes on to say, "Our removal serves as an excellent example of why the law should be changed to prevent repeated extensions of copyright terms."
But Anne Frank's Diary was published in 1947. Extending that copyright beyond the term in effect at the time it was published is a violation of the constitutional prohibition against ex post facto laws.
But then, IANAL and the Supreme Court would probably be overruled by Mickey Mouse anyway.
Have gnu, will travel.
It is the Dutch version they removed. According to Dutch copyright it is in the public domain now. (70 years after the death of the author) Although, because is money to be made, this is also contested.
The Anne Frank foundation has been gold-digging in Europe as well: http://www.theguardian.com/boo... This is a world-wide problem, and European publishers, lobbyists, politicians, and authors are just as much to blame for this as Disney and their supporters in Congress, if not more so.
From what I understand, the diary as published wasn't written by Anne but by her father largely/loosely based on her diary.
Your understanding is incorrect. There are two versions of the diary in Anne Frank's own handwriting - her original, and a more polished version she edited with a view to post-war publication. Otto Frank assembled the published book from both of Anne Frank's versions, excluding some passages but not adding new material. You can directly compare the three versions line by line in the original Dutch or in English translation in the Critical Editions published by the Netherlands Institute for War Documentation. The words are Anne Frank's, not her father's. He selected from the extant material, but did not re-write or invent.
It was her words, but there were some editorial decisions because: a) she actually wrote two versions, and b) there were some sexually explicit entries in her diary that got left out for the initial publication. Subsequent editions added some of the deleted parts back in. Those later editions are also called Diary of a Young Girl. Here's a good article about it.
So the fucking asshole Anne Frank Foundation set up originally by her Dad wants to protect their legally unjust monopoly on an important part of human history, even if once again it means genocide and perhaps again against the Jews? Fuck you, Mirjam Pressler. You make me sick you piece of shit.
Blame the mouse house. Disney keeps lobbying for extensions https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...