From: Sandy Thatcher <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Fri, 20 Nov 2015 12:26:52 -0600

If a work is on the public domain, you can't bring it back into copyright
protection again by adding anything to it.  The original diary cannot
possibly be a joint work if it was written entirely in Anne Frank's
handwriting.  And that was independently created, not co-created with her
father. Your reasoning here makes no sense.

Sandy


From: Kevin Smith <[log in to unmask]>
> Date: Tue, 17 Nov 2015 12:45:53 +0000
>
> I  disagree that there is no question about the contents of the diary
> rising into the public domain; that is precisely the question
> involved, as Jim points out when he notes the central issue of whether
> Otto's editing qualifies him as a joint author.  The unique
> circumstance of joint authorship is that the rights are shared without
> division; the question of who contributed what or how much is not
> raised.  Instead, the copyright in the whole work is divided equally
> between the joint authors, and its term is measure by the life of the
> joint author who lives longest.  So if a court accepts the claim that
> Otto was a joint author, the entire work, not just his contributions
> to it, would be protected for 70 years from the date of his death.
> That would include all of the content that is also contained in any
> transcript or facsimile.
>
> I am not saying that I believe in the claim of joint authorship in
> this case -- I think it is highly doubtful -- but we should understand
> that the Foundation is not making a small claim here, nor one that
> could be so easily circumvented.
>
> Kevin
>
> Kevin L. Smith
> Director, Copyright & Scholarly Communication
> Duke University Libraries
>
> -----Original Message-----
> 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-g
>>  ains-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
>
>