The Goebel’s Diaries Case: Between Law and Morality
In the year 2010, the Goebel’s family of the German Nazi politician and Reich Minister of Propaganda of Nazi Germany Paul Joseph Goebel issued a copyright infringement lawsuit against one of the historians in the publishing company Random House for publishing a book that largely quoted and used verbatim from the diaries that Goebel himself wrote during WWII that included many strategies and plans that were used by the Nazi regime during that time. Copyright in the legal system is a law that legally protects various forms of expression that belong to a certain creator of those expressions from being plagiarized or stolen by anyone else as long as the content of the author has a certain degree of originality and creativity (“Crime doesn’t pay,” n.d).
In opposition to the lawsuit, Random House presented to the court of Munich that Mr Goebel was included in a list by the Allied Control Council, banning his estate from any financial transactions. Outside the court however, Random House presented their moral stance on the issue stating that no money should go to a war criminal. In response to the lawsuit, the district court of Munich deemed the what Random House presented as irrelevant and as a consequence the Goebels won the lawsuit against Random House and Ms schaht ( to whose husband the Goebel’s diaries were passed on after Mr Goebel’s death) was awarded her due royalty payments (“Crime doesn’t pay,” n.d).
As a matter of law, this suit has to be viewed from more than one angle. First side to be considered is what material falls under copyright protection. Simply put, copyright protect any literary, artwork of any kind or even any ideas or facts that are presented in an original and creative way ( A Guide for Journalists to Navigate Fair Use of Copyrighted Material,2013). Therefore, any historical facts and documentations are excepted from the rule. Goebel’s journals on the other hand, though they connect with historical facts that happened during WWII in Nazi Germany, are not to be mistaken with the facts themselves, since they were presented with a certain degree of originality and creativity by their author expressed in specific strategies and plans by Goebel. Hence the historian did infringe on the copyrighted journals when he copied entire paragraphs or excerpted verbatim. What Random House’s book lacked to let it win the lawsuit was that it wasn’t original, nor it even had a transformative purpose which would’ve made it pass for fair use under the public right to know (Aufderheide, Boyles & Bieze, 2012, p. 2). The book presented itself as a biography of the infamous Nazi propagandist, then it gradually diverged from there by copying the work Goebel created and expressed in his journals, that was when the mistake was committed.
Stepping outside of Law, morality has something to speak about this. The only moderate way to approach this is by measuring the influence it has on the public sphere. When a war criminal gets financial benefits from his work that was used to dominate the world by one of the worst regimes in history is not only encouraging bad thought, it’s giving them luxury to express it since they can make money out of it. Another downside to giving copyrights to the work of criminals is that it gives them a certain level of praise or recognition and fame to their harmful ideas which would give a push to other people with similar ideas to protect their evil intentions by having them written or expressed under copyright protection. On the other hand, the historian was wrong to copy paragraphs from the journals word by word, instead he should have used the material to criticize the ideas behind it and tweak the law. The paragraphs copied shouldn’t have been put in the documentary since documentaries must stay objective and factual, instead the journal material had to be dealt with in other publications.
Most critics of having a moral aspect to law would argue that morality is relative, and that it’s a product of culture, therefore the publication of the work of Goebel can be interpreted differently and therefore should be protected under copyrights. However, even though this argument might appeal convincing, there are some moralities that cause beyond doubt suffering to people no matter what their culture is and therefore they should not be by any means protected by law i.e.: killing, racism, abuse of power….( A Guide for Journalists to Navigate Fair Use of Copyrighted Material,2013)
In conclusion, although the law is meant to protect all people. It should also be able to protect people from what could harm them which is why it was invented in the first place. Otherwise under the banner of copyrights, criminals and even terrorists would be able to spread their worst notions of hatred, violence and terror, leading societies to nothing but chaos.
References
Finally: A Guide for Journalists to Navigate Fair Use of Copyrighted Material. (2013, June 10). Retrieved April 17, 2018, from http://mediashift.org/2013/06/helping-journalists-use-copyright-law/
Patricia Aufderheide, Jan Lauren Boyles & Katie Bieze (2012) Copyright, Free Speech, and The Public’s Right to Know,Journalism Studies, 14:6, 875–890, DOI: 10.1080/1461670X.2012.739320
The IPKat. (n.d.). Retrieved April 17, 2018, from http://ipkitten.blogspot.com/2015/09/criminal-copyright-should-copyright.html
