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takyon [soylentnews.org] writes:

The Diary of Anne Frank has been removed [bbc.com] from Wikipedia sister project Wikisource [wikisource.org] due to a reassessment of when the work ceases to be copyrighted:

The Diary of Anne Frank has been removed from book repository Wikisource after the site became aware it had fallen foul of copyright law. The site briefly hosted a digital copy of Het Achterhuis, the first version of the diary compiled by Anne's father Otto, which was published in 1947. It had been put online in the belief that the copyright expired in January 2016, 70 years after Anne's death. However under US law it is protected until 2042.

Wikisource removed the book voluntarily. The Wikimedia Foundation, which runs Wikipedia as well as Wikisource, said its action was "an unfortunate example of the overreach of the US' current copyright law".

[...] Anne Frank died in 1945, which suggests that her elements of the original Dutch language version of the diary is now copyright free. It is in fact in the public domain in some countries, including the UK. But since it was compiled and edited by Anne's father Otto Frank, who omitted much of the content in her original manuscripts, some people argue that he created a new version of the text which should be protected by its own copyright.

Otto Frank died in 1980, which would mean the copyright of the 1947 edition does not expire in many countries until 2050. Anne Frank Fonds, a charitable foundation founded by Otto Frank, told the BBC that it believes Anne Frank's full, unedited manuscripts, which were published in 1986, do remain under copyright. However the group added that it did not believe Mr Frank should be considered a co-author of his daughter's work.

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