From: Peggy E Hoon <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Tue, 17 Nov 2015 15:02:58 +0000

I agree with Sandy; furthermore, the definition of a joint work, at least
in the U.S. Copyright Act - ["A ³joint work² is a work prepared by two or
more authors with the intention that their contributions be merged into
inseparable or interdependent parts of a unitary whole.²] requires intent
on the part of each alleged author that their contributions are to become
part of a single work.  Where is there any evidence that young Anne Frank
intended that her father co-write her diary? I think you would be hard
pressed to find a 14 or 15 year old girl who would let her parents even
read her diary, much less co-author entries.

Peggy Hoon


On 11/16/15, 6:00 PM, "LibLicense-L Discussion Forum on behalf of
LIBLICENSE" <[log in to unmask] on behalf of
[log in to unmask]> wrote:

>From: Sandy Thatcher <[log in to unmask]>
>Date: Sun, 15 Nov 2015 20:16:59 -0600
>
>Whatever the copyright status of the work as "edited" by Otto Frank
>may be, there can be no question that the contents of the diary itself
>will fall into the public domain.  After all, Frank cannot claim that
>he did the actual writing of the diary! So the only thing that the
>copyright can possibly continue protecting is the edited version.
>Anyone can publish a facsimile or transcript edition of the diary
>itself.  And presumably the web version could use that text for what
>it wants to do.
>
>Sandy Thatcher
>
>
>> From: "Jim O'Donnell" <[log in to unmask]>
>> Date: Sun, 15 Nov 2015 08:59:16 -0700
>>
>> Some will have seen this in the New York Times:
>>
>> Anne Frank's Diary Gains 'Co-Author' in Copyright Move
>>
>>
>>http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/14/books/anne-frank-has-a-co-as-diary-gain
>>s-co-author-in-legal-move.html
>>
>> The narrow question is whether her father's editorial intervention
>> entitles him to status as co-author and thus extends copyright to 70
>> years past his death (in 1980); otherwise the work would go into the
>> public domain this year.  There are other issues, not least the
>> competition between two foundations, one in Basel, one in Amsterdam,
>> the latter of which has been planning a web edition of the diary, open
>> access, to appear when the copyright expires.  The father's foundation
>> in Basel that owns the copyright supports work to eradicate prejudice
>> and racism and offers medical support for holocaust survivors and
>> surviving individuals who protected Jews in Nazi times.  I can find
>> only a German wikipedia article:
>> https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anne_Frank-Fonds
>>
>> So there conflicting legal and ethical views of this.  I would offer a
>> strategic question.  For the years 2015-2050 (the extension based on
>> the father's date of death), what advances the beneficial effect to be
>> gotten from this near-miraculous survival of a text that has meant
>> much to many:  the dedicated application of the foundation's profits
>> or the extended audience for the book?  I am persuaded for the latter,
>> mainly because I worry so much about the disappearance from cultural
>> view of much of the heritage of the 20th century if we do not succeed
>> in making the books of the 40s, 50s, 60s available in networked
>> digital form.  Does an author's estate do the author and his/her work
>> more good by collecting royalties or by making the work more widely
>> known and accessible?  Even Anne Frank could be forgotten:  what would
>> prevent that most effectively?
>>
>> Jim O'Donnell
>> ASU