While in Germany the debate is still raging whether an annotated version of Hitler’s book “Mein Kampf” should be published after the copyright protection will expire (I am in favor of such a publication, because what do we do historical research for, if its results won’t be published), in Romania it is being shown in theater. That’s what I thought, not without some consternation, when I saw this poster outside the National Theater in Cluj-Napoca:
Research carried out once I got home revealed that the only thing giving rise to consternation are the gaps in my arts education. “Mein Kampf” is an anti-Nazi farce about the young Adolf Hitler by the Hungarian director George Tabori.
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Could you please be so kind and shine some light over the darkened people masses like me who have no idea about copyright restrictions for this book please?
Sure. When Hitler died in 1945, the State of Bavaria inherited his estate, including the copyright for his book. In German law, copyright expires only 70 years after the author’s death. That means that “Mein Kampf” will enter the public domain next year.
To counter all the reprints which might then become available, a historical research group has been working on an annotated version to be published next year.
Thanks! OK I get the inherited rights and expiry term. So until the rights expire only the state of Bavaria can decide how often, how many copies of the book to release, as no competition they can put any price or also decide to not print even one copy. I hope I am getting that part. But I am sorry I do not think I get the other part of the problem. So up to next year Bavaria earns for new issues and after that everybody will print it. So the only difference I see that the earnings from copies sold will not go to Bavaria state but to any press house which decides to print the copies. I do not see the problem to discus?!
The State of Bavaria never printed or sold any issues. It did not want to make any money, but it used the copyright to effectively ban any other publucation of “Mein Kampf” in German (y). From next year on, they won’t have this option anymore.
So the discussion is whether Bavaria policy should be kept afterwords? I am pretty sure there will be many issues unless it becomes illegal by law. Btw Soviet symbolic is made illegal in LT. You can’t just wear a T-shirt with CCCP for fun.