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