Private Rights or Public Information?
During April of 2015, the family of Joseph Goebbels, who was a Nazi propaganda minister of Adolf Hitler’s rule, sued “Random House” publishing company, because the latter had published a biography of Goebbels written by the historian Peter Longerich, who had used excerpts of Goebbels’ original diary without the family’s copyright agreement (Alberge, 2015).
Hitler’s Min. of Culture Dr. Joseph Goebbels glowering as he sits in the garden of the Carlton Hotel during his first trip abroad to attend the League of Nations; interpreter Dr. Paul Schmidt (L) trying to hand him a note. (Photo by Alfred Eisenstaedt/Pix Inc./Time Life Pictures/Getty Images)
The aim of copyright is to offer authors and creators of scientific and art works rights to their original expression in order to encourage people to invest in new ideas building up on what has already been expressed rather than copying others’ ideas. Copyright can be applied to literary works, audio-visual works, artistic productions (music, photographs, architecture, etc.) and assembling of facts that is accompanied with a certain creative element. When a work is copyrighted, it means that the original creator has the right to take all decisions related to the work’s reproduction, development into work that derives extensively from the original, distribution, etc.
Looking at the case in the absolute, even if one is convinced “that no money should go to a war criminal,”, as says Rainer Dresen, general counsel of Random House Germany (Alberge, 2015), basic knowledge about copyright pushes them, at a first glance, to think that the family has the right to charge a lawsuit. Indeed, the fact that Joseph Goebbels was a Nazi wartime convicted criminal does not make his family members wartime criminals as well. Moreover, when Goebbels’s family declared a legal case, the diary was already published in Germany in 2010 (Alberge, 2015). So, the content of the diaries was public since then. This means, the family had no issue of revealing secrets to the public. Therefore, the latter claim cannot be used as an excuse not to offer copyright to the Goebbels family under the premises that they are tending to hide important information from the public. Hence, like anyone else who publishes a book, it is the right of these people as well to have copyright on the diaries, as long as they have made them public and available for the interested audience, such as researchers, or others. In this specific case, their right is over the publishing of a derivative work that relies on the original diaries.
However, the above statements do not take into consideration the context in which the diaries have been used by the historian Peter Longerich. To be fair, it is worth mentioning that in order to be able to take a stance with or against the law suit, one should be aware of the exact content as well as context where the excerpts of Joseph Goebbels’s diary were used.
If the content used was only discussing socio-political issues, and was only related to Joseph Goebbels himself, then, the law suit could be considered unjust, because the entire issue will fall under the context of a public figure’s accountability and responsibility towards the people. Also, the context of war criminals and the need of historic necessary information that is public and accessible for everyone, in order to easily conduct studies, researches, and find future solutions or take precautions to prevent other world tragedies is a factor that cannot be put aside when studying the lawsuit case of Goebbels’ diaries.
History is a discipline that relies on text published by others, so linking the advancement of the discipline to material exchange would slow down the progress of knowledge in the discipline and would take away people’s access to information. I believe that in academic research, as long as an author cites the original work they are using, they should not be subject to legal accusations.
On another note, according to copyright law, biographical facts and data are not subject to copyright, which only makes sense taking into consideration the fact that lives of politicians such as Joseph Goebbels’s, are part of the public sphere, and in this case specifically, since the diaries relate to a very important stage in history, they should be treated as “works in the public domain”, and “facts”, which fall under the category of things that cannot be copyrighted, as says Packard in “Intellectual Property: Copyright” (2013). In order to be categorized as something that should be copyrighted, a work has to have a certain level of creativity and originality (Packard, 2013), which are not the case of diaries, the latter being simply a realistic representation of someone’s life.
Genocidal German dictator and Nazi leader Adolf Hitler (1889–1945) (rear center) stands with Nazi Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels (1897–1945), his wife Magda (1901–1945), and their three oldest children, left to right, Hilda (1934–1945), Helmut (1935–1945), and Helga (1932–1945), late 1930s. (Photo by Express Newspapers/Getty Images)
Finally, if we look at the case from a purely ethical perspective, and not just a legal one, I believe it is fair to say that given the role Joseph Goebbels has played in horrific wartime atrocities, it would morally be expected from his family to repay for his wrongdoings. Not demanding copyright for a source that can have a big positive impact in the efforts to understand the context of war, can be a good way of exercising that restitution.
In conclusion, we can realise that the context plays an important role in orienting people’s opinions about the case of the law suit charged by Goebbels’s family against Random House publishing company. After thinking through the context and realising that the diaries have historical value and belong to the public rather than the family, we can say that they should not be subject to copyright.
References:
- Alberge, D. (2015, April 18). Random House told it should pay to quote Joseph Goebbels in biography. Retrieved from https://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/apr/18/random-house-told-it-should-pay-to-quote-joseph-goebbels-in-biography
- Packard, A. (2013). Intellectual property: Copyright. Digital Media Law, Second Edition. John Wiley & Sons, Ink. Retrieved from file:///C:/Users/aramp/Desktop/Media%20Law%20&%20Ethics/Readings%20&%20Slides/Week%2014/Digital_Media_Law_COPYRIGHT(2).pdf
