'Anne Frank' Copyright Dispute Triggers VPN, Geoblocking Questions At EU's Highest Court (torrentfreak.com) 76
An anonymous reader quotes a report from TorrentFreak: The Dutch Supreme Court has requested guidance from the EU's top court on geo-blocking, VPNs, and copyright in a case involving the online publication of Anne Frank's manuscripts. The CJEU's response has the potential to reshape the online content distribution landscape, impacting streaming platforms and other services that rely on geo-blocking. VPNs services will monitor the matter with great interest too. [...] While early versions are presumably in the public domain in several countries, the original manuscripts are protected by copyright in the Netherlands until 2037. As a result, the copies published by the Dutch Anne Frank Stichting, are blocked for Dutch visitors. "The scholarly edition of the Anne Frank manuscripts cannot be made available in all countries, due to copyright considerations," is the message disallowed visitors get to see.
This blocking effort is the result of a copyright battle. Ideally, Anne Frank Stichting would like to make the manuscripts available worldwide, but the Swiss 'Fonds' has not given permission for it to do so. And since some parts of the manuscript were first published in 1986, Dutch copyrights are still valid. In theory, geo-blocking efforts could alleviate the copyright concerns but, for the Fonds, these measures are not sufficient. After pointing out that people can bypass the blocking efforts with a VPN, it took the matter to court. Around the world, publishers and streaming services use geo-blocking as the standard measure to enforce geographical licenses. This applies to the Anne Frank Stichting, as well as Netflix, BBC iPlayer, news sites, and gaming platforms. The Anne Frank Fonds doesn't dispute this, but argued in court that people can circumvent these restrictions with a VPN, suggesting that the manuscripts shouldn't be published online at all. The lower court dismissed this argument, stating the defendants had taken reasonable measures to prevent access from the Netherlands. The Fonds appealed, but the appeal was also dismissed, and the case is now before the Dutch Supreme Court.
The Fonds argues that the manuscript website is (in part) directed at a Dutch audience. Therefore, the defendants are making the manuscripts available in the Netherlands, regardless of the use of any blocking measures. The defendants, in turn, argue that the use of state-of-the-art geo-blocking, along with additional measures like a user declaration, is sufficient to prevent a communication to the public in the Netherlands. The defense relied on the opinion in the GO4YU case, which suggests that circumventing geo-blocking with a VPN does not constitute a communication to the public in the blocked territory, unless the blocking is intentionally ineffective.
This blocking effort is the result of a copyright battle. Ideally, Anne Frank Stichting would like to make the manuscripts available worldwide, but the Swiss 'Fonds' has not given permission for it to do so. And since some parts of the manuscript were first published in 1986, Dutch copyrights are still valid. In theory, geo-blocking efforts could alleviate the copyright concerns but, for the Fonds, these measures are not sufficient. After pointing out that people can bypass the blocking efforts with a VPN, it took the matter to court. Around the world, publishers and streaming services use geo-blocking as the standard measure to enforce geographical licenses. This applies to the Anne Frank Stichting, as well as Netflix, BBC iPlayer, news sites, and gaming platforms. The Anne Frank Fonds doesn't dispute this, but argued in court that people can circumvent these restrictions with a VPN, suggesting that the manuscripts shouldn't be published online at all. The lower court dismissed this argument, stating the defendants had taken reasonable measures to prevent access from the Netherlands. The Fonds appealed, but the appeal was also dismissed, and the case is now before the Dutch Supreme Court.
The Fonds argues that the manuscript website is (in part) directed at a Dutch audience. Therefore, the defendants are making the manuscripts available in the Netherlands, regardless of the use of any blocking measures. The defendants, in turn, argue that the use of state-of-the-art geo-blocking, along with additional measures like a user declaration, is sufficient to prevent a communication to the public in the Netherlands. The defense relied on the opinion in the GO4YU case, which suggests that circumventing geo-blocking with a VPN does not constitute a communication to the public in the blocked territory, unless the blocking is intentionally ineffective.
Netherlands copyright is 70 years after death (Score:5, Insightful)
Anne Frank died in 1945, 79 years ago.
Netherlands copyright is 70 years after death. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
All of her writings should already be public domain.
Cannot Obey Every Copyright Law of Every Country (Score:2)
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All your statement tells me is that for copyright we need a better system that's internationally recognized and unified.
The 70 years after the passing of the creator could be seen as excessive - especially since the creator wouldn't benefit from the profits.
I see that there could be two levels.
1. You can reproduce and present the works for non-profit relatively soon after the death of the creator. So if I just recite the works somewhere without being paid for it then it would be fine or just publish them on
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Fixed Period Regardless of Life (Score:2)
However, good luck getting an international agreement on the details o
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The 70 years after the passing of the creator could be seen as excessive - especially since the creator wouldn't benefit from the profits.
This long time span was included in the Berne Convention to make it unprofitable to anyone to cause the death of the author to gain from an earlier public domain date. You have to understand that the Berne Convention is not Copyright (in the U.S. sense), it's a different beast. For instance, a Work for Hire is not directly possible under the Berne Convention. The Berne Convention is about recognizing the authorship, and the right to copy a work is a secondary right that derives from the fact that someone is
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the reality is copyright law is corrupt and classist, it should never be this convoluted not should it extend as far as it does
copyrights no longer help us, indeed, copyright is hurting us
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we simply need to revert copyright to a reasonable term of seven years and only for the content creator, rights cannot be transferred.just retained by a real person
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That would be a nice start, but first we have to elect politicians that will do it. The batch we are about to reelect again won't lift a finger.
Left versus right is just divide and conquer while all our political parties are owned and controlled by upper class influences based on campaign contributions and political lobbying.
Bureaucrats and politicians aren't the real problem, it's all the rich and powerful pulling all the strings.
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can't argue however, i'd say both sides are to blame
not everyone is being taken in, some of us have gone to ground ...
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Today's laws are certianly corrupted from the oroginal, and very valid vision of copyright as a means to ensure that creators were compensated for their creations. I do not see how they are "classist" and, while I agree that today's copyright is huring us, repealing all copyright laws would also hurt us. We need a way to ensure creators of all types can be adequately compensated for their creations in the modern world where technology has made copying is so easy that we do it everyday without thinking.
classit because fees affect the poor the most of course, the rich can afford free access the poor have no access
of course it's classism and economic exploitation
rich label / publishers cheating artists and writers, happens all the time
Re:Netherlands copyright is 70 years after death (Score:5, Informative)
What the the death have to do with it? The date is from date of *PUBLISHING*. The original Anne Frank Diary was published in 1947 and the copyright expired at the end of 2016 in accordance with Dutch copyright law.
It is even pointed out in the summary that early versions are in the public domain. But this hasn't got anything to do with the story. The story is about the revised critical edition https://www.amazon.nl/-/en/Net... [amazon.nl] which was published in 1986 and includes both additional analysis and commentary as well as parts of the diary that were edited out from the 1947 first published version.
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Dutch law [overheid.nl] (articles 37 and 38) counts 70 years from the date of death of the author if the author is known, or 70 years from the date of publication if the author is unknown or is a legal person (and no natural person is indicated as the author). This is in line with the Berne convention, except that it raises the minimum 50 years in both cases. Anne Frank is not anonymous, so it's the date of death that matters.
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Again, the death of Anne Frank has nothing to do with the publishing of a book that came out in 1986, a book whose author is still alive. Anne Frank's original text is public domain as far as the owner wishes to share it.
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To explain my other comment a bit more. The Dutch Law doesn't apply as there was a provision for its adoption that no copyright be reduced as a result of abolishing the publishing exception after death (i.e. the 1986 edition was published and subject to a copyright of 50 years from date of publication irrespective of whether the original author was alive). The fact that the new Dutch Law incorporating the EU copyright directive abolished the special case of work being published after death isn't relevant, t
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Ah! There's a grandfathering clause seven pages away in Article 51, and the 1972 version had an important difference. TFA could really do a better job of explaining the context.
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Yeah the summary seems to have lead a lot of people in the wrong way copyright wise. Actually the Wikipedia entry for Diary of a Young Girl has a relatively good explanation of the situation.
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Anne Frank's father wrote much of the diaries
Re:Netherlands copyright is 70 years after death (Score:4, Informative)
Anne Frank's father wrote much of the diaries
Otto Frank edited the diary and wrote the prologue so he's credited as a co-author. The copyright starts with his publication, since the time it was determined he is the co-author.
https://www.seattletimes.com/n... [seattletimes.com]
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The countdown starts from the date of publication, not the date of writing.
It makes sense - the early drafts of George R. R. Martin's books would be out of copyright before he published them.
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As far as I know, Anne Frank was German.
German copyright extends 90 (or is it 99?) years after death.
That might complicate things.
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I'm sure Germany is quite keen to steer well clear of this particular copyright case, for what should be fairly obvious reasons.
We all knew it was coming (Score:1)
What was the point of the "World, Wide, Web" again? I can't seem to remember.
At least they still don't know about proxies, which technically aren't VPNs, but this could have lasting impact on everything including Tor. How they would enforce it I have no idea besides making it illegal and taking it off the app stores. Even if you block the VPN apps though, you can still set up a server in another country and install VPN so
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First Russia, then Brazil, then this. All in the name of censorship or copyright.
Did you forget about France?
copyright renewal fees are needed that will fix a (Score:2)
copyright renewal fees are needed that will fix an lot of stuff.
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Copyright renewal fees will open a new can of worms.
Re:copyright renewal fees are needed that will fix (Score:5, Interesting)
Agree. will open a can of worms.
But, will force those receiving government benefits, in the form of copyright protection and legal system backing for their copyrights, to pay something for that life + 90 year protection.
Even a $10 every ten years for each copyright record item, each individual book, each individual magazine article, short story, poem, etc.
Failure to pay the copyright renewal would let the copyright office permanently declare a work in the public domain and not have the large, unintended problem of orphaned works.
The $10 and application fee would force an update of the name and address of the copyright owner, and force copyright owners of millions of works (Warner Brothers) to divide works into worth protecting and not worth protecting.
And getting more works into the public domain, as the founding fathers intended - 16 years max in 1776 - is a good thing. They;d not expected a young author to write a book at 20 years old, live to be 80 and then have the book under copyright for 60 years of life + another 90 years for 150 years total.
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Even more ridiculous that this applies to software just the same.
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Except copyright isn't granted by the government. It is natural. You're not required to register copyrighted works anywhere. Something is copyright to you by nature of you creating it. Now you want to charge $10 for every idea, every word, every tune hummed in the shower?
This would a) turn copyrights into similar things to patents by forcing registration, b) cause a colossal administrative headache which would turn into a mockery of the system (there's a backlog of over 4.2 million patents siting awaiting f
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There was never any point in history where all nation states would agree to abdicate their own laws or sovereignty in this space, merely a defacto agreement or inertia to wait and see what the commercial and social impact would be.
We now know that it turns
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First Russia, then Brazil, then this. All in the name of censorship or copyright.
Did you forget about Turkey?
What horseshit (Score:2)
She was murdered nearly 80 years ago & wanted the world to know what happened.
These belong to everyone & should be in the public domain.
Re:What horseshit (Score:5, Informative)
She was murdered nearly 80 years ago & wanted the world to know what happened.
She wrote all of it before her family was arrested, and she didn't yet know what was going to happen.
It was a private diary. It's unlikely she wanted anyone else to read it.
Before it was published, her dad edited out a lot of the personal stuff, some of it musing about sex.
Revenue numbers (Score:3)
Anyone have a source for the revenue numbers Anne Frank's works, her likeness, her museum/house/etc. brings in a year?
These type of articles need to ask about the money, who benefits, political motives, etc.
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Anyone have a source for the revenue numbers Anne Frank's works
Google says $1.5M/year in royalties.
Many middle and high schools include Anne's diary in their curriculum because teens can relate to it.
Profiting on Anne Frank (TM) (Score:2)
Found the Anne Frank museum made a 2 million euro profit in 2022 and has 6 million in staff salary paid out.
That's just the museum, with its 11 million euro in direct revenue. There's got to be millions of euros in Anne Frank related revenue and merchandise (the diary book, for example, read by millions of school children each year).
See the PDF budget link here https://www.annefrank.org/en/a... [annefrank.org]
Following the money and there are lots of highly paid persons who's income depends on Anne Frank being commerciali
inclusion in every US history textbook (Score:2)
Anne Frank is featured in every state's US history textbook.
A partial outcome of the boomer's need to 'personalize history' so every young student has someone to self-validate with based on shared characteristics.
Well, not all students, there is a single demographic of students not championed with a role mode for their demographic in US history textbooks....
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It is also comforting for American teens to learn about other countries' atrocities instead of our own.
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political motives, etc.
Presumably reminding people of the atrocities of the Nazis. Why does everyone need to seek deeper political motives in everything. The overwhelming majority of the world doesn't give a shit about politics and actively hates the nonsense every few years when they need to get off their arse to vote.
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She was murdered nearly 80 years ago & wanted the world to know what happened.
These belong to everyone & should be in the public domain.
Especially since we have dickheads who feel comfortable enough to cosplay as nazis now. https://www.nbcnews.com/news/u... [nbcnews.com]
In simpler times it was considered common courtesy to empty a tommy gun if you happened upon a group of them. I also guarantee these were the same assholes who bitched and moaned about wearing a mask during covid.
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it was considered common courtesy to empty a tommy gun if you happened upon a group of them.
The solution to extremism is not political violence. If that is what you advocate, you're no better than them.
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The solution to extremism is not political violence. If that is what you advocate, you're no better than them.
We fought an actual war with these assholes. If this had happened in a city in 1944 what do you think the outcome would have been?
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She was murdered nearly 80 years ago & wanted the world to know what happened.
These belong to everyone & should be in the public domain.
It is in public domain. The copyright for Anne Frank's Diary expired in 2016. What is being discussed here is a 1986 released Critical Edition of the book. The author of that book is very much alive, and it contains things not in Anne Frank's manuscripts. They get their 50 year copyright license just like everyone else.
Re:What horseshit (Score:5, Informative)
This is not about the copyright regarding any later edition. It is indeed about the original texts. The "online scholarly edition of the complete manuscripts of Anne Frank" is published by the Vereniging voor Onderzoek en Ontsluiting van Historische Teksten (Association for Research and Access to Historical Texts), Avenue Louise 209a / Louizalaan 209a, 1050 Brussels. Brussels is in Belgium, where the copyright on the original texts has expired, and the authors of that "online scholarly edition" want to make their work available freely. They can't publish their own edition in all countries due to the copyright on Anne Frank's original manuscripts, which is held by that fund that her father founded in Switzerland. That fund is now going after their geoblocked publication of the authors' own work because the fund deems geoblocking insufficient for protecting the copyright on the original manuscripts where it hasn't expired (among others in the Netherlands). It's a pity for anyone who still wants to wallow in the misery of Anne Frank. They'll have to wait a little longer until her father's fund can't stop them from learning about her.
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So, let's think about who profits from this. I suspect the real winners of all this are the lawyers. I expect that the income from the 'online scholarly edition' over the remaining years will be dwarfed by the legal fees for this crazy escalation to the Hoge Raad der Nederlanden.
Next time a lawyer tells you, "We can win this!!" don't let your emotional involvement lead you into a lemming like dash off a cliff. The first question you should ask is, "How much will winning this cost me, and how much value wi
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This is not about the copyright regarding any later edition. It is indeed about the original texts.
That's not true. The original text had their copyright set to expire in 1997 (50 years after death) and the 1986 complete manuscript is very much both a republication and an extension of the original was set to expire in 2037 (50 years after publication). The original Anne Frank's diary is very much in public domain and freely available online for all.
It's the later edition that is the cause of this kerfuffle, because the EU copyright directive abolished the idea of publishing something after death of the a
80 years later Anne Frank is still not allowed out (Score:2)
Nice...
Shame on all those people. Anything related to Anne Frank should have been public domain for all to learn valuable lessons from since the end of the war. Trying to profit from any of it is nothing short of disgusting.
And the most disgusting individual of all is her father Otto Frank who published the diary against her daughter's will, and managed to be listed as co-author because he censored parts of it, which is why the copyrights are still running and stinking up her memory with the stench of greed
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Re:Otto Frank, Anne's father, founded the "Fonds" (Score:5, Interesting)
You're exceptionally misguided. You're the stereotype. Otto Franck is the sole survivor of his extended family of 8. After the war, he finds himself alone with the heartbreaking testimony of his deceased daughter. He accomplishes her wish to become a writer, and publishing her manuscript. As the book is acclaimed in the world, he creates a foundation whose revenues are dedicated to charities related to children and women's rights. Until his death replies to letters from readers. The foundation is his sole heir.
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I mean, can you imagine the drama of living through the Europe's or the World's most bloody war, losing your entire family in horrible assassinations, spending the remaining of your life honouring the memory of your departed ones, dedicating your entire fortune to charities, then for 50 years some useless internet coward mocking your life.
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That's racist. Anne Frankly, it's not very funny either.
I didn't read it (Score:2)
I thought I had, but no I didn't read her diary. Yet somehow I know everything about her that you do.
Copyright has lost its meaning long ago (Score:2)
The point of copyright was to encourage creators to continue creating, by giving them control of what they created, and a way to make money off it.
Copyrights after death don't serve this in any way.
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Except for descendants
The day you finally put your pen down (or pressed 'Save') you switched from being an author to an investor. It's your decision as to whether you want to sell the publishing rights immediately, negotiate royalties and/or leave some of the proceeds to ungrateful (and lazy) heirs. And on that day, copyright law allows the author the rights to the value of the publishing contract. The value on that day .
As anyone who has taken Econ 101 knows, the present value of a future revenue stream decreases the further
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> It's your decision as to whether you want to sell the publishing rights immediately, negotiate royalties and/or leave some of the proceeds...
I assume you're not an author. None of this reflects the decisions an author has to make.
Such a stupid worry (Score:1)
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