Protecting the Works of War Criminals

Joseph Goebbels is Adolf Hitler’s minister of propaganda, who used to write his diary through the Nazi era around 1933 till 1945 (Alberge, 2015). In 2010, the Nazi minister’s estate represented by Joseph Goebbels family was appointed in a case against Random House Germany, the publisher for a new biography on Joseph Goebbels life, represented by its general counselor Dresen. Since Peter Longerich, professor of modern German history at Royal Holloway, has decided to take parts of Joseph Goebbels’s diary without asking the Goebbels family for the copyrights to use it. Through the estate of Joseph Goebbels, a lawyer called Schacht sued Dresen. The procedures of the trial revolving around the financial royalties and earnings of the publication started, as the Munich court froze the earnings on the book. As a result, Random House “appealed on legal, copyright and moral grounds” (Alberge, 2015). Dresen accepted to pay royalties provided that the money goes for a holocaust charity. Schacht defended against Dresen’s suggestion and argued that it would be better if the money goes to whom is thought to be the descendants of Goebbels’s siblings since Goebbels and his wife have poisoned their six children before they killed themselves (Alberge, 2015). Dresen then argues that Joseph himself has written on one of the entries of his diary that he plans to share it, but this never gives him the right to use it without asking his family. They agree on giving the lawyer 1% of the net retail price, but then he tells her that he can’t pay for a work that is owned by the Bavarian government. However, noting that the lawyer’s father is a partner in Adolf Hitler’s life, the copyright law here shouldn’t look to the right of the person from the viewpoint of his acts, whether he is an ethical person or not, rather if he has the right to win the case or not. Although Joseph Goebbels is a war criminal, the copyright law itself looks fairly to all people who has right and whose work have been stolen without permissions. Thus, no critical judgment should accuse the Goebbels family because their son is unethical, but also the Goebbels family has to give permission for the use of the diary to other people, like students and teachers for further purposes. The case here falls between the dilemma of giving the right to information for the public by taking into consideration the copyright law. But how if the copyright law protects a criminal? Hence, the copyright law doesn’t focus on the form of the work, whether it is an image or a historical document, and not how ethical its creator is, but how the public strive to know about the work, if a historical document essentially is about the partner of Hitler, then the public should get to know more, but initially through the approach of law.

Moreover, it is worthy to note that Ashley (2013, p.176), states that the copyright law gives rights for the original creators on their works which include all forms of art, literature, imagery, software, etc. The law gives a fair look to the labors in general, where creators become more interested in investing in several fields of art and science. But for the law to protect the way an idea is expressed and assign it to the creator’s name, the creator should show some level of creativity about the expression of the idea itself. In addition to that, its aim secures the creator with an exclusive and transferrable legal right for his work. It gives credits to the original creators and promotes investment in new ideas for people in order to build on these ideas.

Furthermore, the law protects all works the same, whether they are photographs, literary works, sound recordings, choreographic works, etc…The law doesn’t give more importance for a work on another, like when violating the law of copyrights for stealing papers from a historical document is the same as stealing parts of a dance work or a literary work. However, this case focuses on the work itself because it is found in the libraries too with older publications that has taken permissions (Alberge, 2015), but the issue here resides on the original creator himself. As known, the acts of Joseph Goebbels conclude that he is a criminal. Rainer Dresen says that war criminals should not be given their money, and this is an assumption on the character of Joseph Goebbels. Although Joseph is to be considered a criminal, the law must give him his right or to his family, and specifically that the case is about Joseph’s own personal diary. Comparing Joseph’s case to a different copyright case, particularly to a different form of work like imagery, show that both are fairly legally taken into consideration in the court. Like the case of Fairey, an artist, who created the designed image of Obama in 2008, which was based on a photograph by Garcia, a freelance photographer. The designed image by Fairey was used for Obama’s elections campaign. Garcia sued Fairey for basing his work and creating a new designed image on an original work of him (Kennedy, 2011). Then they decided to start to work together, the A.P. and Fairey. Regardless of the results of the two different cases, whether they got to an agreement or not, the law took the same stance on giving the right for the people whose works are protected under the copyright law in the two cases. Thus, although there is different works here, a photograph and a diary, but both are protected by the same law and the people whose rights are violated have to take the same steps to get their rights. On the other hand, the information stated in the work itself will make the work more important in accordance to the interest of the public in it. As specified in the Guardian article, the diary of Joseph Goebbels has been used in older publications (Alberge, 2015), a reasonable element to show how interesting as a document the diary is and why Random House Germany needs to use it for more analysis.

As stated above, Random House appealed on legal, copyright and moral grounds in the court through the case, but these grounds can be used to explain why the Goebbels family’s stance in particular for suing Random House is justifiable. Speaking from the law side, Joseph Goebbels has died in 1945, and the copyright law after 1978 says that after the death of the original writer there is 70 years added for his work to still be protected under copyrights. Thus, there is still 5 years from his death to 2010, which was the year for the publish of the book, to the diary to be protected by copyrights. This gives the right for the Goebbels family that they are also on the legal side to sue the historian and to ask for their rights. Originally, they didn’t say they didn’t want to publish the diary, because already there is publishers who took the copyrights and published it before (Alberge, 2015), yet they just argued for their right. Speaking from the moral side, the privacy of Joseph is the family’s privacy too and what is not ethical to do is to take a portion of one’s personal life and publish it without asking for the permissions. As a result, the family will still be affected by anything stated in the diary, and this never justifies the act of Random House. However, the use of the diary will implement the public interested to build on the ideas written in the diary and which is one of the important copyright law key purposes (Ashley, 2013, p.179).

Additionally, comparing copyright cases of the same form, like historical documents, convey that the differences in them, like the time they both occurred, is not effective as much as the element of privacy that makes them the same. For instance, the case of Charles Upham who used the letters of George Washington to publish a volume on the life of the latter (ARL staff, n.d.). Here the cases are different because they both happened in different times where the copyright law has changed, but they both included interesting and personal information and ideas about the life of these figures, Washington and Goebbels. Upham used 350 pages of Washington’s letters and then Justice Joseph Story found that Upham had infringed the owner’s copyrights (ARL staff, n.d.). The case here is before the copyright law of 1978, which gives 28 years that can be reset again for 28 years also for the original creator to hold his work protected under the copyright law. However, Upham was sued for his act. Then, the law took its stance, but the public’s interest gave these documents more importance as of the truths they hold in. This tells that the comparison between this case is that the need from the public to their right of information falls on the importance of the letters and the diary of these political figures. All works are important if they hold the original creative level, but if anyone writes his diary free of facts that doesn’t interest the mass then why they need to know about it. On the other hand, these documents include information that not what people really know; it will add facts that people has missed from that old time. The world has based on the truths that has been out on that time, where now after the publication of the new ideas from the diary will rise more chaos, but at the same time there will be more knowledge and definite answers to raised questions by the public on the Nazi era in general.

In conclusion, comparing this specific historical document will make a difference. Also, the death of the person himself will make it more complicated. Hence, the case of Joseph is of more complication since he is dead. The biggest part of interest is that he is dead where he can’t change anything and the diary is written as it is. In addition, what is more interesting is that he is a criminal and the partner of Adolf Hitler who knows a lot about his life and had mentioned some ideas about him in the diary. Thus, the public has the right to know about it, especially, for the Germans, but taking the information from the law side, because their right is considered “right” if they abide by the copyright law. Neglecting the fact that this work is for a criminal, since his illegal acts made him and his diary encouraging to read and publish.

References

Alberge, D. (18 April, 2015). Random House told it should pay to quote Joseph Goebbels in biography. The Guardian. Retrieved from https://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/apr/18/random-house-told-it-should-pay-to-quote-joseph-goebbels-in-biography

ARL Staff (n.d.). Copyright Timeline: A History of Copyright in the United States. Association of Research Libraries. Retrieved from http://www.arl.org/focus-areas/copyright-ip/2486-copyright-timeline#.Wti_j7Fh3ow

Kennedy, R. (2011). Shepard Fairey and The A.P. Settle Legal Dispute. The New York Times. Retrieved from https://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/13/arts/design/13fairey.html

Packard, Ashley (2013) ‘Invasion of Privacy’ in Digital Media Law, Wiley-Blackwell, Hoboken, NJ, p. 176.

Packard, Ashley (2013) ‘Invasion of Privacy’ in Digital Media Law, Wiley-Blackwell, Hoboken, NJ, p. 179.