The Copyright Bargain
A biography presenting Joseph Goebbels’s life, Goebbel was a Nazi party leader also known for being Adolf Hitler’s minister of propaganda. The publisher of this biography was under scrutiny from Goebbels family and eventually sued him for royalties. The main issue was that the writer who is Peter Longerich took entries from Goebbels private diaries and published them. Longerich has long been known for his history telling in which he was known as a leading historian who reported the Holocaust and Nazi for many years. The Goebbels biography was first published in 2010 in Germany and then the English version followed in 2015.
The main debate in this debate is wether the money should go to Goebbels’ family or not, whom top lawyers of Random House complain that it is not appropriate for the money to go to a war criminal.
“We are convinced that no money should go to a war criminal” Rainer Dresen, general counsel of Random House Germany (Alberge, 2015).
Copyright here is a critical situation because copyright in such a case history is being transmitted; putting a tollbooth on it or locking it up both can be problematic because it can serve to massively limit shaping our society into studying and learning history and how we take the information. It is especially problematic because a tragic history such as Nazi Germany is crucially critical.
As we know, copyright was primarily designed for three main reasons censorship, control and strict regulations.
I believe that when history is published, it should show proof; and what better proof can be shown other than a diary of someone who has been in it. And claiming copyright over Goebbels’ diaries than this is Nazi propaganda tool by itself.
“Facts” are not subject to copyright, which means that no one can own the substance (as against the text) of a scoop or exclusive, once it has been published. (Auferheide and Jaszi, 2012)
The diaries can stand as facts because they are a proof of what has truly happened and the “facts” are coming from someone within the Nazi.
I think that the only argument that Goebber’s family can do be excused for would be if they are taking the money to pay for a good cause but if they want to use copyright with the motives of exclusively benefiting from the profit this will be unacceptable.
On another note, historians in general should use any published works or unpublished writings of people who were a part of history making because this would give a complete and full analysis of the e past and excluding things could cause consequences such as mistakingly analysing history.
