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Originally Posted by Pulpmeister
If you are going to abandon the law on moral grounds you are back to book burning, from the Alexandria Library to the present day.
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I think that the Alexandria Library burning was consistent with the laws of the governments doing it, and probably was consistent with any laws of war in place at the various times of destruction.
There only will be abandonment of the law if Bertelsmann ignores a final court ruling against it. If, let's say, the US subsidiary decided to defy German courts -- I'm sure they don't have the conjoins to do it, but say they did -- this would have no similarity to book burning.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Pulpmeister
Or wait until the diaries go into the public domain in 2016.
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The issue here is the American edition. We have no public domain day coming until 2019, and, except maybe for a few entries made in 1923, that will not cover this. I think that what will govern is German copyright concepts and US copyright term. If there's a lawyer in the house who really knows, I will stand corrected. As for suppressing publication for a period of time, I think that would be a bad precedent.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Pulpmeister
My position is, if they didn't want to pay the royalties don't do the deal; they could confine themselves to the small extracts of "fair dealing".
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"Fair dealing" is a concept in British and Canadian law. This may or may not be similar for Germany, and I guess it will be for the German courts to decide:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right_to_quote#Germany
http://www.gesetze-im-internet.de/urhg/__51.html
Quote:
Originally Posted by Pulpmeister
I have never read Goebels' diaries, can't imagine wanting to, but there are extracts, for those curious to see the style, in The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, by William L Shirer.
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By your own logic, I think you just advocated we become pirates. Either that, or you think Longerich quoted so extensively as to almost reproduce the diaries. But unless you have checked the German edition, that's speculation. And, given that Longrich's books generally get good reviews, I don't think he is that kind of hack.
When Shirer published in 1960, Cordula Schacht, not yet being a lawyer, couldn't engage in this kind of mischief.