Estate Of Joseph Goebbels Using Copyright To Demand Cash From New Biographer
from the that's-like-something-the-nazis...-oh-wait dept
Over the past few months, there have been a bunch of stories about the copyright status of Mein Kampf, with people fretting over the fact that the book is about to go into the public domain. The book, of course, was Adolf Hitler's manifesto, and while few people actually read it, in Germany it hasn't been published in decades. That's because the US seized the Nazis' publishing house, including its copyright in the book. It then gave that copyright to the state of Bavaria, which has used it to block the publication of Mein Kampf ever since. But, with Germany being a country where copyright is life+70, and seeing as Hitler died 70 years ago, on January 1, 2016, the book falls into the public domain (in the US, however, Houghton Mifflin apparently still retains the rights -- because nothing ever goes into the public domain here).Either way, now there's another copyright dispute concerning a top Nazi: Joseph Goebbels, Hitler's minister of propaganda. It turns out that while his copyrights also flip over into the public domain on January 1st of next year, a UK professor, Peter Longerich, just published a new biography of Goebbels, and Goebbels' heirs have come out of the woodwork to demand royalties, because the book quotes Goebbels' diaries.
Cordula Schacht – a lawyer whose own father, Hjalmar Schacht, was Hitler’s minister of economics – is suing Random House Germany and its imprint Siedler, over the book Goebbels, by Peter Longerich, professor of modern German history at Royal Holloway, University of London.Most of the debate focuses on whether or not it is appropriate for money to "go to a war criminal," as Random House's top lawyer complains. There is also some discussion of who owns the copyright, as some believe that when the US seized the Nazis' publishing house and got the copyright on Mein Kampf, it also got the copyright on Goebbels' works.
Longerich, an authority on the Holocaust and Nazi era Germany, drew extensively on Goebbels’ diaries in his biography, which was published in Germany in 2010. Now those same passages from the diaries are set to appear in the English edition, which Penguin Random House UK and its imprint Bodley Head will publish on 7 May.
Unfortunately, what's not discussed at all is how fair use should take care of a situation like this. Tragically for both Germany and the UK, neither have fair use. The UK does have a narrowly targeted "fair dealing" concept that likely does not cover this kind of scholarly publication.
Yet, this seems to show just why fair use is such an important concept. Being able to have academic experts properly quote historical source material in writing up biographies and other analyses of historical events and people seems like a no brainer for anyone hoping to properly study and record history. Using copyright to try to lock up such information (or to put a tollbooth on it) only serves to massively limit the ability of our society to accurately study and learn from history -- especially history as tragic as Nazi Germany.
Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.
Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.
While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.
–The Techdirt Team
Filed Under: adolf hitler, copyright, diaries, fair use, germany, joseph goebbels, peter longerich, public domain
Reader Comments
Subscribe: RSS
View by: Time | Thread
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Considering the extreme anti-Nazi stance taken by the German government--with a good deal of support from the German people, no less--I find it difficult to understand what could possess this guy to step up and essentially say, publicly, "My father was a member of Hitler's inner circle, and on that authority I order you to stop doing what you are doing."
Most of the time, I can understand someone's motivation for doing something I don't agree with, but this... this just makes no sense.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re:
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re:
Uh, they are not suing to have the book suppressed. They are suing for royalties.
Which is somewhat hilarious since the kind of unholy lawyering/money union pervading the whole copyright industry cancer established high correlations between certain society classes, their religion and their self-image and influence throughout medieval and succeeding centuries, leading to the rise of antisemitism in all of Europe and ultimately the awful culmination in Germany: what we have in corporatism and copyright maximalism these days is quintessentially what the Nazis with Goebbels in a leading role were able to successfully paint and sell as "Jewish World Conspiracy".
And now Goebbel's heirs go "All in" on the lawyering for monetizing stuff no sane person would want to be proud of.
It's good that the Nazis have lost. But unfortunately, sanity has not stuck around with the prevailing parties.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Much simpler
[ link to this | view in thread ]
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Don't forget renewals
What's the point of having copyright renewals if they're automatic?
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Seems really a stretch though...
[ link to this | view in thread ]
[ link to this | view in thread ]
The perfect tool
[ link to this | view in thread ]
"My client, an defined purpose trust in Nevis, holds the copyright. It was assigned by a family member who wants to remain anonymous -- the scrawled signature is right here, counter-signed by Mr. Cooper. Just make the check payable to my law firm."
[ link to this | view in thread ]
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: Seems really a stretch though...
[ link to this | view in thread ]
it makes sense as an act of desperation.
Our society has become such that the need to make money has superceded the need to behave ethically or do what is right by the community (or even true to one's own mral character).
We are good people when when we can afford to be, but when human beings fear for our livelihood, even a downgrade in lifestyle, we quickly become dicks.
And if the Goebbels estate is controlled by a company, then there's no moral foundation to begin with, since every person involved has their job -- and their meal ticket -- on the line.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Profiting off crime.
There are some rules governing archeological and academic studies -- you can use artifacts for scholastic purposes and display them in a museum, but trying to sell copyrights seems right out... even criminal to try.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Possible solution to the problem
....and no money to shameless descendants of despicable Nazis.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
The thing with Mein Kampf
In reality Mein Kampf is a scattered, poorly composed work, the product of Goebbel's notes while Hitler paced and ranted in his prison cell. Like the bible, everyone in Nazi Germany owned a copy, yet no one actually read it. Frankly, the reading of Mein Kampf is a labor I'd gladly inflict on anyone determined to worship an ideology simply to retain justification to hate and scapegoat.
Maybe, just maybe, some of them would come to terms with the discovery that their icon was a very human very tempermental narcissistic psycho.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: The thing with Mein Kampf
Huh. I've not had much of a time to indulge but chanced upon it one time in the rather expansive bookshelf of my father. Of those parts I skimmed, I had the impression that it would be sort of persuasive, particularly without extensive contradicting news, political and sociological knowledge. You know, the kind of political education a typical U.S. resident has.
And indeed, the "our country is under attack by those seeking to destroy our way of life and we must not be queasy about squashing those who attack us" crap works perfectly well in current U.S.
It's gobbled up just fine by the masses.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
I might be giving human kind the benefit of the doubt.
Still, I trust even less an enclave of elites to decide what media is or isn't safe for prole consumption.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: Seems really a stretch though...
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: it makes sense as an act of desperation.
If someone is only a good person when they can afford to be, then they aren't a good person.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
A good person who isn't good when desperate isn't good.
There is even a legal accommodation for it, specifically necessity which is a supercategory of self defense. If you are going to die without your medication, and your pharmacists refuses to issue them to you, even if for some legitimate reason such as an insurance processing problem, my necessity you can take the medication by force.
Granted, this would be a defense that is in a justice system that is very broken, and where the police would be inclined to shoot you before trial, so what is more relevant is not the incident with the pharmacists, but the incident with the police that follows.
Maybe your standards of good are different then mine. But in that case, I would submit there are no good people.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: A good person who isn't good when desperate isn't good.
So, yes, my absolute statement was a bit too absolute.
[ link to this | view in thread ]