More IP Idiocy

The Swiss charity the Anne Frank Fonds will be atempting to add her father as co-author to the book in an attempt to expand the copyright term, which has the effect of preventing public posting of the work which otherwise would have happened on 1 January:

When Otto Frank first published his daughter’s red-checked diary and notebooks, he wrote a prologue assuring readers that the book mostly contained her words, written while hiding from the Nazis in a secret annex of a factory in Amsterdam.

But now the Swiss foundation that holds the copyright to “The Diary of Anne Frank” is alerting publishers that her father is not only the editor but also legally the co-author of the celebrated book.

The move has a practical effect: It extends the copyright from Jan. 1, when it is set to expire in most of Europe, to the end of 2050. Copyrights in Europe generally end 70 years after an author’s death. Anne Frank died 70 years ago at Bergen-Belsen, a concentration camp, and Otto Frank died in 1980. Extending the copyright would block others from being able to publish the book without paying royalties or receiving permission.

This sort of sh%$ is getting out of hand.

IP protections have become more and excessive, and they have nothing to do with the intended purpose of IP protections, which is to encourage innovation and creativity.