Should publications of war criminals be protected by copyright?
The estate of Joseph Goebbels, Adolf Hitler’s minister of propaganda, took legal action against the publisher Random House over a new biography, asking for payment for including multiple extracts from his diaries (Alberge, 2015). Random House published Goebble’s book titled ‘Goebbels: A Biograph’ in 2010 but the publication house and Longerich have failed to pay the Goebbles family royalties for using the writings. In principle, copyright means the legal right to control all use of an original work, such as a book, play, movie, or piece of music, for a certain period of time (Cambridge Dictionary).
According to the copyright laws, information is preserved to its creator, which is also continued with protecting this information from the public’s access. However, in today’s open digital space of information, a piece when published is lost. It became harder to follow up with copyright standards. As Balkin posits in Digital Speech and Democratic Culture ‘The digital revolution makes possible widespread cultural participation and interaction that previously could not have existed to this extent; yet, it bursts new opportunities for limiting and controlling those forms of cultural participation (Balkin, 2004).
However, the Geobble’s family claim to give the authority of his diaries to a Bavarian government, making the situation unfair. How come a person’s private information is known by some and some are sued if they accused it for certain historical research and benefits? Dr. Longerich argued that “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). In this specific case, using these information to further research and understand more about historical events and strategies according to a Nazi’s person should be offered to public or at least traded with money. Specifically, that these information are claimed to be published for public interest, but unfortunately there are no proves of any written agreements of publication. However, it’s an extremist case here: these information should be either traded for money and served the public, or preserved from any human being regardless to what governmental affiliation one belongs to.
In terms of offering pivotal knowledge as a crucial issue that serves the public, there are fair use laws and regulations that control over some information. The fair use standards are not taken into consideration in the Random House’s debate. The fair use is considered when the public’s benefit for receiving the information is more essential than an individual’s profit. According to a legal perspective regarding the legislations of fair use, judges determine the response according to 4 factors — the purpose and character of use, the nature of the copyrighted work, the amount and substantiality of the portion taken, and the effect of the use upon the potential market (Stim, 2017).
Nevertheless, the privacy of an information should be under the authority of its creator, it should be used depending on their permission. Hence, as long as the person is alive they are free to sell or do whatever they want wth their writings. While in Goebble’s case, he’s dead, and his family want to have control on what he’s done in his life, but it’s illogical to make free information sold or made a property of someone who hadn’t invented it.
Particular historical works and publications should not be treated like other regular works, like in Goebbels’s diaries essential information needs to be extracted out. It’s the public’s right to receive and have access to information that is related to them and affect their political and social positions, just like the effect that sciences and arts have on our daily lives. With caption from the Utilalitarian ethical approach, the decision needs to be taken according to higher good for people; therefore, we need to focus on the advantages that this data might produce.
In conclusion, copyright laws protect the personal data, yet has to serve the community’s needs as long as it’s under ethical standards. Since these diaries do not cause any direct harm to the public; on the contrary, helps them with understanding the history of their system’s political strategies, they should be published or utilized in any term that produces cultural advantage. These data may help whether build the economical or governmental sector or benefit a huge population.
References:
Alberge, D. (2015, April 17). Random House told it should pay to quote Joseph Goebbels in biography. https://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/apr/18/random-house-told-it-should-pay-to-quote-joseph-goebbels-in-biography
Balkin, J. M. (2004). Digital speech and democratic culture: A theory of freedom of expression for the information society.
Cambridge English Dictionary. https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/copyright
Stim, R. (2017, April 10). Measuring Fair Use: The Four Factors. https://fairuse.stanford.edu/overview/fair-use/four-factors/
