
Anne Frank’s Diary Gains ‘Co-Author’ in Copyright Move - NameNickHN
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/14/books/anne-frank-has-a-co-as-diary-gains-co-author-in-legal-move.html
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pbhjpbhj
>"The move has a practical effect: It extends the copyright from Jan. 1, when
it is set to expire in most of Europe, to the end of 2050. Copyrights in
Europe generally end 70 years after an author’s death. Anne Frank died 70
years ago at Bergen-Belsen, a concentration camp, and Otto Frank died in 1980.
Extending the copyright would block others from being able to publish the book
without paying royalties or receiving permission." (from nytimes article in
OP) //

Mr Frank of course has rights over the work he produced, but anything that
Anne wrote will be out of copyright. Works representing the output of multiple
persons needn't be treated atomically AFAIA.

As a thought experiment: Something I find curious is what law - other than
trespass - would prevent someone from getting hold of the original work and
publishing it verbatim, it wouldn't be a copyright infringement; I'm not sure
it can truly be considered to theft. The criminal liability for entering and
taking photos of a work that is out of copyright should rightly be very minor,
the tort of trespass seems to be all that could be sued for.

If this stands the precedent set will surely see editors, typesetters and
others claiming co-authorship of works such as out-of-copyright books and
causing a further malevolent erosion of the public domain.

~~~
tomphoolery
Why wouldn't publishing the book's contents in full under a different name and
title be copyright infringement?

~~~
rev_bird
Because the original "book," by Anne Frank, would be in the public domain.

~~~
Terr_
Then there's no point to their action, because it would still be public domain
even after their attempt to steal it.

------
jacquesm
Sickening to see her legacy soiled like this for what seem to be purely
commercial reasons. "This is not about the money"... sure, what _is_ it about
then?

The most effective countermeasure would be to publish the actual diary, un-
edited, ink stains and all without any further polishing or changing.

I also think that would be a much more powerful document than the interpreted
one.

~~~
PhasmaFelis
I'm not sure "commercial" is quite fair, since all the money goes to a
charitable foundation. This is still clearly a misuse of copyright, but their
intentions may actually be noble.

Edit: I haven't said anything that wasn't strictly factual. Please don't
downvote me because you mistakenly think I was defending copyright abuse.

~~~
jacquesm
They are about to lose their jobs and/or relevance.

What happens to the money is less important than that her book is free to read
for everybody, it's a _very_ important historical document, especially given
the rise of the new right wing element in Europe.

This is not the first time there is financial controversy around the diary,
the last time a lot of money changed hands to be able to show an additional 5
pages.

Note that the people in charge of the foundation never said that this was to
make sure the foundation would still receive funds, they claimed the opposite,
this was not about the money, this was about 'protecting Anne Frank'. I fear
that she's very much beyond needing any such protection. Citation from the
article:

"“When she died, she was a young girl who was not even 16. We are protecting
her. That is our task.”"

~~~
cwyers
Every institution, over time, seems to morph so that the perpetuation of that
institution becomes its top priority, even at the expense of the mission it
was founded to serve.

------
TazeTSchnitzel
I beg of you: do not allow anyone to inherit your copyrights. This naked
profiteering by the descendants of the deceased has happened time and time
again. Consider the case of Martin Luther King, Jr., whose 'I Have A Dream'
speech cannot be printed in full in textbooks, because his estate charges $10
to read it. A speech that was written to be performed publicly.

~~~
jacquesm
Anne Frank was not in a position to do much about who inherited her
copyrights.

~~~
TazeTSchnitzel
Of course. But her father was.

~~~
jacquesm
The argument here is that he set up that Swiss foundation specifically to
protect her legacy, it is the administrators of the foundation that try to
make him a co-author here, not Otto Frank himself. He did not claim to be her
co-author so he wasn't in a position to do anything about this either, merely
trying to do what he thought was best, and now that group of 'managers' has
made a turn-about because they were about to become irrelevant.

------
mxfh
While this move is questionable, it highlights a justice dilemma with the
current copyright term practice of death of author + x years. Especially when
arguing that that the descendants should benefit from the works of an author,
now it is effectively so, that relatives of someone who got murdered (possibly
even because of their works) are in terms of copyright worse off than someone
who did not, just because of their date of death. There should be some clause
that has either publication of work + x years or birth date + x + plus average
life expectancy.

At least France has such a special clause of plus 30 years for people who
fought and died for the country:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mort_pour_la_France#cite_note-...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mort_pour_la_France#cite_note-2)

------
steve19
Why is it not considered fraud to advertise the book as being written by Ms.
Frank, only to claim another author decades later? They seem to both have
their cake and eat it too.

I find it especially galling as the co-author died never claiming to be the
author.

In 67 years time Tom Clancy's third cousin's son no doubt will suddenly appear
as a co-author of his books just as they go out of copyright ...

------
Alex3917
Isn't one of the main beliefs of holocaust deniers that Anne Frank didn't
actually write the diary, and that it was actually written by her father? I
thought the Anne Frank Foundation had been denying this for decades...

~~~
jacquesm
Anne's dad re-arranged and censored some parts of it and wrote an
introduction. It's pretty much required reading here in schools (or at least,
it was when I was a kid).

I guess consistency isn't the Anne Frank Foundation's strong point.

~~~
Alex3917
> Anne's dad re-arranged and censored some parts of it and wrote an
> introduction.

Right, that's what they had said, but now they seem to be saying that that's
no longer true. To quote the NYT article:

"But now the Swiss foundation that holds the copyright to 'The Diary of Anne
Frank' is alerting publishers that her father is not only the editor but also
legally the co-author of the celebrated book. [...] 'If you follow their
arguments, it means that they have lied for years about the fact that it was
only written by Anne Frank.'"

It would make sense that the father might have some claim to a copyright on
the version he edited, but it looks like they are saying that he was the co-
author on the supposedly unedited version also.

~~~
jacquesm
Their arguments - both past and present - are inconsistent and I'd be more
than happy to contribute to a lawsuit testing that assumption. This really
should not fly, it makes me very upset.

~~~
Alex3917
This reminds me of the lawsuit a few years ago where Scientologists tried to
sue some folks for publishing their internal documents online, and the folks
publishing them said that Scientology didn't own the copyrights since both the
documents and the 'church' claimed they were written by Xenu.

~~~
jacquesm
That was right here in Amsterdam. Karin Spaink and xs4all vs Scientology.
She's one of my heroes. The case you refer to is 'the Fishman affidavits'.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karin_Spaink](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karin_Spaink)

We were at VOLMAC in the same year, but I highly doubt she would remember
that.

[http://kspaink.home.xs4all.nl/fishman/home.html](http://kspaink.home.xs4all.nl/fishman/home.html)

Talk about abuse of copyright, that was one of the worst ever.

------
droithomme
It's so important to be able to profit from genocide.

~~~
mxfh
Sure. But Anne Frank is the wrong target here.

What about apologetic memoirs of active perpetrators or works of
propagandists?

Albert Speer † 1981; Fritz Hippler † 2002; Leni Riefenstahl † 2003

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techdragon
Despicable.

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gpvos
Link should be to the much more informative
[http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/14/books/anne-frank-has-a-
co-...](http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/14/books/anne-frank-has-a-co-as-diary-
gains-co-author-in-legal-move.html) , which this article points to.

~~~
dang
Thanks. Changed from [http://time.com/4113855/anne-frank-diary-co-
author/](http://time.com/4113855/anne-frank-diary-co-author/).

------
stefantalpalaru
Rick Falkvinge wrote an interesting article on the subject:
[https://torrentfreak.com/anne-frank-scandal-an-
underreported...](https://torrentfreak.com/anne-frank-scandal-an-
underreported-copyright-monopoly-abuse-151115/)

Relevant quote:

> What’s really infuriating about this is how oldmedia doesn’t call it out as
> fraud at all, but takes a completely neutral stance. Most outlets seem to be
> rewrites of the New York Times story, which just neutrally reports “the book
> now has a co-author”, quotes a few people in the worst form of abdicative
> “he-said-she-said journalism”, and leaves it at that.

