the copyright law applies to all books.
Cordula Schacht — who owns the rights to the famous Goebbels diary (Appendix A) — has sued the publishing house Random House to claim the payment of the use of some extracts from the diary; the lawsuit resulted in a compromise between the two parties leading to paying Schacht 1% of the net retail price. This lawsuit brings me to what I’m about to explain and that it is the law of copyright. The key purpose of Copyright is to protect investment in new ideas, another purpose is to promote the progress of science and useful arts. Copyright protects all forms of arts, ranging from literary arts to a compilation of facts. (Appendix B)
Goebbels started to write the diary for personal use; he used to write everything that was occurring around him and everything he used to feel however as soon as he became Hitler’s propaganda Minister he used to write everything occurred during the war and the time he spent with Hitler, which lead him to publish it making it a historical document. Knowing that the diary is a historical document, it also makes it as a literary work as any other novel but the difference is that the diary should have copies made or should be distributed globally since it’s an artifact, it should be placed in Libraries as it may have crucial information that may help people with research and studies. On the other hand, the copyright of other books should be upheld by the owner since they do not contain that much importance as historical artifacts. The diary, without no doubt, should be under legal protection, however not everyone agrees because Goebbels is a Nazi, hence placing the diary under legal action will mean that we are pro-Nazis and this is what actually occurred in the Schacht-Random House lawsuit. It Is very illogical to not place Goebbels’s diary under legal protection due to political affiliation, in my opinion this diary should have the right the same as any book, just because it was written by a Nazi then we shouldn’t pay back to the owner of the copyright? Imagine If Schacht hadn’t sued Random House publications, then the company would still have been selling the book without providing Royalties to Schacht, in addition to that the book would still be selling illegally under US Law that deals with copyright infringement. Imagine if Random House did not reach an agreement with Schacht, would the biography still be a success or will it cause a dilemma and the removal of the book from the public’s eye? Ethically speaking, the duty of the publishing house is to pay back Schacht for the use of the extracts, no matter who the person is and who the person is affiliated with; The Goebbels family may not want to share the diary publicly because what if there were some sensitive information that may lead to the banning of the diary in certain countries, or it may cause many problems for publishers in which it did in this case. My only issue is with Anne Frank’s diaries (Appendix C) — it is said to be that her diary has been banned for sexual content and homophobic themes, however it is[Office1] now publicly available everywhere, so why does this historical monument have the same copyright rights as books? If Anne Frank wasn’t a victim of the Holocaust, she wouldn’t have gotten the rights and her diary wouldn’t have been available everywhere for a very cheap price. Also, the people who own the rights to the Anne Frank diary have done several tweaks and have added content to the diary in order to extend the law, which is illegal. In Goebbel’s case, Schacht currently owns the rights to the diaries, but she hasn’t disobeyed the copyright law nor were the diaries publish for content, the only issue is that Goebbels was a Nazi, and that’s why his diary has people preventing it from being copyrighted (the same as any other book), but the Goebbels diary is also available online however for a very high price.
In the end, I think that anything that has been written by a person should be treated the same way a book is treated that has been written by an author, so as long as the diary has the same features as a book then it should be treated like one. When people use, information retrieved from books, it’s a form of stealing so the minimum this person can do is credit the person they’re stealing from, but stealing and not wanting to do anything in return is ethically wrong, normally as a human we tend to have some morals so no matter who we’re benefitting or accrediting, we should always give back what we took. In my opinion, if it were up to me, I would choose that that Goebbels’s diary would have the same copyright right as any other item.
Alberge, D. (2015, April 18). 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
Copyright. Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright#Background
Packard, Ashley. Digital Media Law (2nd Edition). : Wiley, . p 176 http://site.ebrary.com/id/10593119?ppg=176
The Diary of a Young Girl. Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Diary_of_a_Young_Girl
The Goebbels Diary. Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goebbels_Diaries
