Quote:
Originally Posted by SteveEisenberg
It gets to the fundamental value of a free press in providing a check on political leaders. And Random House is one of said free presses.
Given the decline of newspapers, book-length journalism is more important than ever, and shouldn't be subject to making payments to the public figures under examination.
I'd then say that when a public figure like Joseph Goebbels, or unlike him, keeps unpublished (in his lifetime) diaries, the public figure reasonably expects future historians to quote from them without his heirs getting a pay off.
Now, if the quotes were from books prepared for commercial publication, I'd still be against Random House paying off politicians, democratic or otherwise, or their heirs, for the quotes in critical biographies. But in terms of there being no expectation of the writing ever getting financial compensation, posts here do have a family resemblance to diary entries.
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Goebbels wasn't a politician, Goebbels was a bureaucrat.
Diaries are by nature private.
I personally have freedom of the press. I may print up political polemics and distribute them. That is what the phrase means - not some self defining little group. Random House is no more exempt from honoring it's contracts than you or I.