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Wikimedia removes the Diary of Anne Frank due to copyright law
- nness 11y agoI find it startling that, with the current terms of copyright, no music I'm listening to today or even in the last decade will be in the public domain before I die.
- i573323 11y agoIt's life of the author + 70 years so even if Disney no longer extends the copyright it won't be available in the public domain before your children die.
- jessaustin 11y agoThank goodness someone has considered the interests of Anne Frank's heirs... oh, wait.
- setra 11y agoNice one a holocaust joke.
- Jedd 11y agoI'm not sure it's a holocaust joke. Heirs and descendants are not synonymous. EDIT: read the ownership dispute & history[1] at wikipedia - it certainly reads like various inheritors (heirs?) have gone to some lengths to extend the copyright of the original material by making periodic changes. I am not a lawyer, consequently I don't understand how such changes can affect status of original work (as in - how they can apply retrospectively to the original work - and not just affect copyright of those changes). [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Diary_of_a_Young_Girl#Copyright_and_ownership_dispute https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Diary_of_a_Young_Girl#Copy...
- Nutmog 11y agoActually, her heirs are the ones milking the system. They own the copyright and could put it in the public domain if they wanted. They've formed a foundation who's job is to monetize her works.
- chris_wot 11y agoI'm as appalled as the next man by this ridiculous copyright situation, but they could also be trying to ensure that nobody can modify the work in a way that would be disrespectful to the memory of Anne Frank. That's a real concern, given that there are a lot of Neo-Nazis in the world.
- lbarrett 11y agoBut satire is covered by fair use, right? So I think the neo-Nazis aren't hampered by the copyright.
- chris_wot 11y agoYeah, fair point.
- Kristine1975 11y agoI doubt neo-nazis care about the copyright of a book written by "a dirty Jew."
- chris_wot 11y agoYeah, but the copyright holder wouldn't necessarily be happy with a commercial enterprise that adapted the work as Neo-Nazi propaganda. I'm just saying that the motivation around holding copyright might not only be monetary.
- eggy 11y agoI am more distressed that a work by a German, at the time stateless in the Netherlands, that long ago, and given the global importance of such a work, that the U.S. even has the copyright. The explanation in Wikimedia I understand clearly, but I do not acept it.
- matthewbauer 11y agoIt's interesting that there's even debate over whether it's public domain in Europe: http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-01-02/anne-franks-diary-goes-online-despite-rights-dispute/7064328 http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-01-02/anne-franks-diary-goes...
- Esau 11y agoBecause money.
- legulere 11y agoWhy should foreign stuff not be protected by copyright? Think about american movies or software written in america not being protected abroad. It's also not the US that owns the copyright but the Anne Frank Fonds in Basel, which got the copyright from her father.
- kuschku 11y agoIf I live in a country where copyright term is 1 day, and I publish online every Disney movie ever created, the US will enforce US copyright terms on me. Why does the copyright of where the reader lives, not where the publishing person lives, matter?
- legulere 11y agoNot if you only make it available to people in your country. If you don't plan to travel to the US or to a country with an extradition agreement with the US concerning this you won't even need to care about that. States want to be autonomous and set the rules that are in force in their country on their own. When you download stuff while sitting in the US, it's happening in the US. When the servers you're downloading it from are also standing in the US, like in this case, then it's even more clear that this is happening in the US.
- magicfractal 11y agoThat's barbaric. That's why civil disobedience is the only adequate answer to the current overreach of copyright in the united states. It's up to us, technologists, to create and disseminate tools to help out in the dismantlement of an absurd system that is obsolete in the digital age.
- joesmo 11y agoI agree. Civil disobedience is the only solution to such anti-intellectual crusades of greed. The only problem is that people that work on such tools will be persecuted (and prosecuted) even if those tools are completely legal (see the pirate bay, popcorn time, and anything related to bittorent). Still, better to risk trying than to bow down to greed.
- moron4hire 11y agoThat's kind of the point of civil disobedience. You acknowledge that the penalty is worth standing up for your cause.
- joesmo 11y agoNo, I'm building legal software, not practicing civil disobedience. What others do with it shouldn't affect my freedom or life negatively. But it will.
- rangibaby 11y agoThat is the cost of freedom.
- brooklyndude 11y agoCivil disobedience was a lot harder to do in 1776 then 2016. Marching in the street will probably have you bio-scanned, in a database, linked to your Metro Card. So Plan B?
- coliveira 11y agoAre you really upset about access to a book that you can find in any library? There are reasons to be upset about copyright, but this is just nonsense to me. If you really want to read this book so much, and for free, patronize your local library.
- diziet 11y agoBut who holds the copyright?
- matthewbauer 11y agoI think it's the "Anne Frank Fonds". http://www.annefrank.ch/ http://www.annefrank.ch/
- diziet 11y agoEstablished by Anne's father and editor. Ok. I wonder if the Wikimedia foundation reached out to the Fond. and tried to get permission for posting of the content, or does Wikimedia only do certain licenses?
- pmiller2 11y agoYes, the only do "free content licenses," with limited exceptions. https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Resolution:Licensing_policy https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Resolution:Licensing_po...
- noonespecial 11y agoJust like that silly explanation of the width of railroad tracks starting with the width of a roman horse's ass, the question of "why can't I read the Diary of Anne Frank" starts with "so there was this cartoon for little kids in the '20's called Mickey Mouse..." We reach this ridiculous situation by serious people taking a series of thoughtful actions a tiny bit at a time. But serious and thoughtful actions only add upon themselves with each step. Ridiculousness multiplies.
- icebraining 11y agoWas it really bit by bit? In most of the world, the Berne convention - signed in 1886 - implemented a copyright length of author's life + 50 years. This was a massive leap for most countries. Even in the US, the people behind the Sonny Bono Act (aka Mickey Mouse Protection Act) proposed indefinite copyright - MPAA's Jack Valenti actually suggested "forever less one day" to avoid the Constitutional restriction! The life + 50 years was the compromise they could reach.
- pbhjpbhj 11y agoThe contract of copyright is that you'll make works freely available in return for a time-limited monopoly enforced by the people, the demos, through the state. A perpetual copyright would not be a copyright, there's no reason for the people to support it. If you could pass such an act I think it would show your regime to be something other than a democracy.
- yardie 11y agoThey should have done that then made it retroactive. Then the heirs of Shakespeare, Mozart, and Grimm bros. can sue them into the dirt for copyright infringement.
- Artoemius 11y agoThat's depressing. As I'm becoming older, I'm beginning to suspect that the bright sci-fi future isn't really going to come true after all, and we'll have to live in a sad bleak dystopia.
- rocky1138 11y agoDoes anyone have a copy of it that we could seed on torrent?
- hansen 11y agohttp://gen.lib.rus.ec/ http://gen.lib.rus.ec/
- raddad 11y agohttps://archive.org/details/AnneFrankTheDiaryOfAYoungGirl https://archive.org/details/AnneFrankTheDiaryOfAYoungGirl Claims it is open source. The torrent somebody asked for: https://archive.org/download/AnneFrankTheDiaryOfAYoungGirl/AnneFrankTheDiaryOfAYoungGirl_archive.torrent https://archive.org/download/AnneFrankTheDiaryOfAYoungGirl/A...
- poizan42 11y agoThe Internet Archive is absolutely fearless when it comes to risk of litigation for copyright infringement. One could fear that it will be their dead.
- empressplay 11y agoApparently they have some sort of exemption (as an extension of the LoC?) but that's never been legally tested.
- TazeTSchnitzel 11y agoThey are indeed fearless. They have put up thousands of copyrighted video games, for example.
- TazeTSchnitzel 11y agoThe license info there is almost certainly wrong. On whose authority is it Creative Commons? If it's in the "open source" collection, I think that's just because it hasn't been moved to a different one yet by administrators.
- chris_wot 11y agoWow, that's appalling!
- empressplay 11y agoAvailable on archive.org (and going nowhere): http://web.archive.org/web/20160103110123/https://nl.wikisource.org/wiki/Het_Achterhuis_(Anne_Frank) http://web.archive.org/web/20160103110123/https://nl.wikisou...
- gpvos 11y agoAlso at http://wikilivres.ca/wiki/Het_Achterhuis_%28Anne_Frank%29 http://wikilivres.ca/wiki/Het_Achterhuis_%28Anne_Frank%29 , and just to be sure there is now also a copy at http://archive.is/http://wikilivres.ca/wiki/Het_Achterhuis_%28Anne_Frank%29 http://archive.is/http://wikilivres.ca/wiki/Het_Achterhuis_%...
- Houshalter 11y agoPlease read this: https://web.law.duke.edu/cspd/publicdomainday/2016/pre-1976 https://web.law.duke.edu/cspd/publicdomainday/2016/pre-1976 And also look at the graphic on this page: http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2012/03/the-missing-20th-century-how-copyright-protection-makes-books-vanish/255282/ http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2012/03/the-mi... Copyright serves a legitimate purpose. I doubt there would be many big budget games or movies produced without some degree of protection. The purpose of copyright is to provide an incentive to produce creative works. But it also needs to balance the benefits of that with the costs of restricting works from the public. I believe that copyright should last 10 years. That sounds really short, but hear me out. The vast majority of works are not economically relevant after 10 years. And the ones that are, have usually earned 99% of their money within ten years. It's a power law, the first year gets vastly more money than the second year, than the third year, and so on. This is especially true for games and movies which are fast paced industries. It's also true for books and music, but the power law curve is a bit less steep. There are exceptions to this, but they are just that - exceptions. The point is to provide an incentive for creators, not to give giant benefits to the outliers at the expense of the public. Also originally copyright law had some additional measures to keep it from being restrictive. You had to actually register the copyright, not just grant it automatically, and you had to renew it halfway through. Which cost a few thousand dollars. I also am very much in favor of derivative works. Fanfiction shouldn't be illegal, making a t shirt with your favorite character on it shouldn't be illegal, etc. With this system you would be able to use old music, photos, software, books, movies, etc. As long as they were made before 2006. Also trademark could handle some of the remaining issues. E.g. "Star Wars" could be a trademark of george lucas. You could make star wars derivatives, but you couldn't brand them with star wars. Consumers would be able to tell apart ripoffs from works by the original creator. Mickey mouse would still be a trademark of disney, but you could watch steamboat willy cartoons on youtube.
- oconnor663 11y ago> I doubt there would be many big budget games or movies produced without some degree of protection. I get where you're coming from, but I worry there's a ton of status quo bias in that doubt. Of all the bajillion ways to incentivize creativity, either with or without laws, how sure can we be that this is the best one?
- brooklyndude 11y agoOk, I know, first reaction, utter STUPIDITY of the human race. But don't let it down OK? There are some good, smart, people out there that care about it all. They're out there, they really are. Just keep looking. :-)
- smhg 11y agoLike the people in the Wikimedia Foundation.
- killerpopiller 11y agobut if it entered public domain in NL who can uphold Copyright in US? How can US law overrule dutch if it is of dutch origin?
- icebraining 11y agoIt doesn't "overrule" it. NL copyright law applies to NL, not to the US.
- laurent123456 11y agoI think the origin of the book doesn't really matter. The copyright was owned by her father Otto Frank, who then transferred it to the Ann Frank foundation, which still owns the copyright and can enforce it worldwide.
- phicoh 11y agoThe idea is that the copyright expires 70 years after the death of the author. It's really sad that the Anne Frank Fonds, which now hold the rights, claims that the diary was (partially) written by her father, Otto Frank.
- JohnIcare 11y agoIs there other story like the Anne Franck one? Why not boycot the museum in Amsterdam, the books and speak of others stories? That's cynical? Not more than the Anne Franck copyright's holders...
- phicoh 11y agoNo need to boycot the museum, that's not the organisation that has the copyrights.
- solidangle 11y agoYou are mistaking the Anne Frank Foundation (Dutch: Anne Frank Stichting), which maintains the Anne Frank House and monitors racism (specifically anti-semitism) in the Netherlands, with the Swiss Anne Frank Fonds, which holds the copyright to her diary. It is currently under discussion whether or not the Anne Frank Fonds actually holds the copyright, as it has been more than 70 years since the death of Anne Frank copyright should have expired, but the Anne Frank Fonds claims that Otto Frank (Anne's father) was a co-author of the book.
- anonymfus 11y agoWhy, considering that US copyright laws are ones of the worst, Wikimedia Foundation is still based here? They should move to other jurisdiction.
- XJOKOLAT 11y agoimmediately downloads a digital copy as a matter of principle
- throw99182 11y agoGood to see the activism regarding copyright. On the other hand, when there is a real human who suffers like, say, Anne Frank, half of HN blames the victim.
- blueflow 11y agoThen just read "Mein Kampf" instead, its already free. I could laugh if this wasn't for real.
- based2 11y agoLawrence Lessig: Re-examining the remix http://www.ted.com/talks/lessig_nyed http://www.ted.com/talks/lessig_nyed
- sydneysider 11y agoIt was partially fake anyway
- tome 11y agoLots of rage here against the US government, little rage against the Anne Frank Fonds that actually asserts the copyright. If you really feel so strongly then go and rail against the foundation who could transfer the book into the public domain with least a million times (literally) less difficulty than it would take to get US copyright law changed to have the same effect. http://www.annefrank.ch/qa-en.html http://www.annefrank.ch/qa-en.html
- zoise 11y agoThank you for this gesture of support for identity. What is rare, is empathy for the trauma of s/cop/ying. Anger and language for this kind of term (a form of abuse) is important to justify literally, and trigger emotional correlary.
- mtgx 11y agoWell you know what they say when it comes to patents, too? "Hate the game, not the player". But I'm fair, and I think we should hate both.
- the8472 11y agoBut that would not fix the problem in general. Consider orphan works for example.
- r0muald 11y agoSo today rally against the Anne Frank Fonds. Tomorrow against Disney. Then what? If the law creates an artificial incentive that damages the public good, are you going to separately criticize each one of those who take advantage of that, or to ask to change the law?
- Shivetya 11y agothere can be no public good if you deprive people of their property rights because you somehow take offense at their exercise of those rights. While there should be some limit on how long you can retain copyright I seriously would not want it to be less than the current and following generation, if not the third.
- acd 11y agoThis relates to Disney and Mickey mouse as follows, everytime the copyright of mickey mouse was about to expire the copyright law has been extended. "This law, also known as the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act, Sonny Bono Act, or (derisively) the Mickey Mouse Protection Act" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_Term_Extension_Act https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_Term_Extension_Act Mickey mouse copyright vs works of Jewish girl killed by the Nazis.
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- ctingom 11y agoSo, who actually owns it?
- hartator 11y agoThis foundation - http://www.annefrank.ch/ http://www.annefrank.ch/ owns the copyright. It's meant for charity, but I don't think they realizes they are doing more damage by holding the copyright than whatever good the foundation is doing.
- rajneeshgopalan 11y agoWhat a shame.. such stories should be spread widely and rapidly!