Should publications of war criminals be protected by copyright?

In the case “Random house vs Goebbels”, the fight was quite simple. Peter Longerich wrote a controversial biography about Joseph Goebbels. He used Goebbels’ diaries for information. When the books got published, Cordula Schacht the daughter of Hjalmar Schacht took matters into her own hands and called the Random House asking for compensation under the copyright laws. When Joseph Goebbels died, he left his diaries to Hjalmar Schacht, and when Hjalmar died, they went to his daughter. In order to avoid further issues regarding the publication, Rainer Dresen, the general counsel of Random House Germany, agreed to pay her 1% of the net retail price. Although they agreed to paid, they were against the idea stating that “no money should go to a war criminal” and “If you accept that a private person controls the rights to Goebbels’ diaries, then — theoretically — you give this person the right to control research” (Alberge, 2015)

All of this case happened under the copyright argument. Let’s start defining copyright. Copyright is the “exclusive and transferable legal right given to the originator of creative works, and Assigns exclusive right to print, publish, perform, film, or record literary, artistic, or musical material for a fixed number of years” (Ashley, 2013)

In other words, it means that when one wants to use an information that it not theirs, they have to state where they got it from, otherwise they will face altercations. Copyright laws were put in place to to assure authors exclusive rights to their original expression (Ashley, 2013). Literary works, Musical works, Dramatic works, Motion picture and audio visual works, Photographs, Sound recordings, etc. are usually the most protected by copyright laws. Usually, the creators if the work or the employers hold the rights, and the copyrights can last about 70 years. (Ashley, 2013)

With a reign that lasted twelve years and with a body count of eleven million people Adolf Hitler’s ruling was one of the worst to ever exist. According to an article in The Business Insider, he wanted to “create his ideal “master race” by eliminating Jews, Slavs, gypsies, homosexuals, and political opponents by forcefully sending them to concentration camps, where they were tortured and worked to death.” (Holodny & Macias, 2015) Hitler relied on very direct and indirect propaganda in order to achieve such success in his first couple of years. This brings us to Joseph Goebbels who was Hitler’s propaganda minister. Hjalmar Schacht was the minister of finance. In other words, Goebbels imprinted thoughts into people’s minds while Hjalmar financed Hitler’s wars. On moral grounds, all three men are criminals that should’ve payed for their crimes; Although what is the price of eleven million souls?

The diaries used in order to release the biographies should not belong to one person who is related to these families but should belong to the government. What these three men and their entire council did was imaginable, they are criminals, and the fact that Random House has to pay to use their information is unbelievable and unfair. Even if Schacht was freed from his crimes at Nurnberg, he is still a criminal and had a lot to do with the millions of lives lost. Random House tried to reason with Cordula Schacht, saying that they will pay her if she donates it to a Holocaust charity, she refused saying that the money should go to the Goebbels family. This action speaks very loud of her unmoral character.

Longerich claims that Control of the rights could have included an inspection of the manuscript before publication, which did not happen in this case. Moreover, there is evidence in the diaries that confirms the plans for publication, which in other words is a written consent and finally, the diaries remain in copyright until the end of 2015, which is after the before the publication of the English version of the book. (Alberge, 2015)

However, considering the importance of these diaries, and the fact that they’re historical pieces of element and not only literature, then that makes them too important to be in the sole custody of one person only, they should belong to the government and be placed in the archives. Taking into consideration the importance of the propaganda during Hitler’s reign, it is only logical that the diaries that explain these tactics be used by professionals such as historians and psychologists in order to try and understand how they were this successful. Diaries of tactics of war cannot be compared to any literature work, they contain evidence of actual historical events.

This is nowhere near the copyright infringement of Jeff Koons. He used a copyrighted photograph without permission as the basis for sculptures, copying all elements of the photo.He made a small fortune selling them. The photographer who took the picture sued koons and won in court under the argument that a potential market for sculptures of the photograph existed (koon). Another example is that of JK Rowling suing bazee.com, the Indian eBay, for creating e-books without the consent of the author or Time Warner, some of these e-books were marketed as being signed by Rowling herself, when they weren’t. The case went to trial.

All in all, all these cases are of copyright laws being infringed but none of them are about actual historical massacres. The Goebbel’s family should’ve taken the money and donated it such as Radom House first asked. Cordula refused and would have rather the money go to the family of the criminal. Morally, they do not have the right to talk, specially that their families are responsible for the death of millions of people. By siding with the Goebbel family, the court is indirectly encouraging criminals.

References

Alberge, D. (2015, April 18). Random House told it should pay to quote Joseph Goebbels in biography. Retrieved April 16, 2018, from The Guardian: https://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/apr/18/random-house-told-it-should-pay-to-quote-joseph-goebbels-in-biography

Holodny , E., & Macias, A. (2015, October 7). The 25 most ruthless leaders of all time. Retrieved April 16, 2018, from Business Insider: http://www.businessinsider.com/most-ruthless-leaders-of-all-time-2015-10

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

Rogers v. Koons, 960 F.2d 301 (2d Cir. 1992)Source: Standford University Library, Copyright and Fair Use http://fairuse.stanford.edu/overview/fair-use/four-factors/#example-2