Hi Jonathan,
We all realize how sensitive a subject this is. Not only because of the reasons you give, but also for the obvious reason that this is a highly influential and well known work we're talking about.
If we were publishers trying to make a buck out of selling the work, I would agree with you, and move on. However, that is not what we want to do as a movement. We don't try to take advantage, but we want to build upon works. We want to collaborate and stand on the shoulders of giants. Giants like this little girl.
Before the WMF deleted the pages from Wikisource, we were working on a context enriched version, and considering working on a free translation into English, which could then be used to spread the lessons this book can teach us to other languages beyond those in which it already is available. That would improve people's understanding, that would increase its reach.
Please note that the Anne Frank Fund is not the only charity that works on this legacy. Other relevant organisations (I don't know if I can go into details publicly) were more supportive.
Best regards, Lodewijk
On Tue, Feb 16, 2016 at 6:35 PM, WereSpielChequers < werespielchequers@gmail.com> wrote:
I may have an unpopular view here, but when an author has been murdered, especially one so young, I find it distasteful to try to make that a test case re copyright. If Anne Frank hadn't been murdered she might well still be alive today, and presumably her work would still be in copyright.
By all means we should be encouraging people to freely license things openly, and arguing for open licensing against those who claim copyright on faithful copies of out of copyright work, and for freedom of panorama in countries less open about such things than Armenia or the UK.
I'm sort of OK about as Michael Maggs put it using it to "increase awareness of the excessive length (95 years) of some US copyright terms." Though I'd hope there are other examples where we don't look like taking advantage of the murder of a child. I'm also OK with using this as an example of us taking copyright seriously.
But though it is an important work, is it really one we should be trying to force into the open against the wishes of a charity set up by her relatives?
Regards
Jonathan/WereSpielChequers
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