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Wikimedia Foundation removes The Diary of Anne Frank due to copyright law requirements


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In an unfortunate example of the overreach of the United States’ current copyright law, the Wikimedia Foundation has removed the Dutch-language text of The Diary of a Young Girl—more commonly known in English as The Diary of Anne Frank—from Wikisource.[1]

We took this action to comply with the US Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), as we believe the diary is still under US copyright protection under the law as it is currently written. Nevertheless, our removal serves as an excellent example of why the law should be changed to prevent repeated extensions of copyright terms, an issue that has plagued our communities for years.

  1. ^ The diary text was originally located on the Dutch-language Wikisource.