They died in 1942 -- No.12: Janusz Korczak

The twelfth and final personality depicted in this series of people whose work fell out of copyright at the beginning of 2013 in 'life-plus-70' countries is Janusz Korczak, whose tale is told here by guest contributor Miriam Levenson:

Janusz Korczak (c.1878-1942)

Born Henryk Goldszmit to a Polish Jewish family, Korzcak adopted this pseudonym during his years as a medical student at the University of Warsaw. This double persona lasted for a few years; while Henryk Goldszmit went on to qualify as a paediatrician, Janusz Korzcak gained literary recognition with his novels about children. After seven years working at Warsaw Children’s Hospital, Korzcak found that his fame as a novelist was disrupting his work, with families of patients converging on the hospital to meet the doctor who wrote novels. In 1912 Korzcak gave up medicine and opened an orphanage for Jewish children. During the First World War he was conscripted as a doctor, leaving the orphanage in the capable hands of his co-worker ‘Madame Stefa’ (Stefania Wilczynska). The Great War inspired Korzcak to write How to Love a Child, outlining his psychological observations of what is needed to raise children successfully. Korzcak ran his orphanage like a ‘children’s republic’, with its own small parliament, court system and daily newspaper. As time went on and the orphans experienced a great deal of suffering, Korzcak would tell them fairy-tales which helped them understand and cope with life’s hardships. Korzcak also gained fame and popularity with his radio show during the 1930s, where he promoted the rights of children and gave advice on how cope with difficult children.

In 1940, Korzcak’s orphanage was forced to move into the Warsaw ghetto. Korzcak was offered sanctuary on the ‘Aryan side’ a number of times, but he consistently refused to leave his children. In August 1942, the 200-odd orphans, together with Korzcak and his staff, were transported to Treblinka extermination camp. Korzcak dressed the children in their finest clothes and told them each to take a favourite book or toy. When the Germans came for them, the children marched out, singing their orphanage song and carrying its flag. The writings of Stary Doktor (‘the Old Doctor’), as he was affectionately known, have been translated into many languages and live on. Korzcak is best known for his fiction (for both adults and children) and his pedagogy.

Tax relief for TV and video games

Apologies for starting the new year by talking about tax, however I thought that draft legislation (see page 385 onwards) published by HMRC last December might be of interest to readers, as it sets out the proposed tax reliefs for high-end television, animation production and video game development for inclusion in the Finance Bill 2013. HM Treasury has also published a response to the consultation on creative sector tax reliefs. Comments on the draft legislation are invited by 6 February 2013.

In HM Treasury's response to the consultation, David Gauke, the Exchequer Secretary, said that these new targeted incentives support the Government's ambition to make the UK the technology centre of Europe, and that the new reliefs looked to build on the success of the film tax relief, which has supported over £5 billion of investment into British films.

HM Treasury also noted that responses to the consultation set out a clear case for the need to support skills development within these creative industries. David Gauke confirmed that, as announced at the Autumn Statement, the Government will introduce additional support for skills and talent development within the film, television and video games sectors, to come into effect alongside the new creative sector tax reliefs in April 2013.

Both the additional support of skills development and the increased tax relief will be welcomed by the television, animation and video games industries.

A summary of the proposed high-end television tax relief can be found here and of the video games tax relief can be found here.

They died in 1942 -- No.11: Bruno Shulz

The eleventh of this season's creative talents whose deaths in 1942 triggered the release of their works from copyright protection to the public domain in 'life-plus-70' countries is Bruno Shulz, whose story is sketched out here by guest contributor Miriam Levenson. She writes:

Bruno Shulz (1892-1942)

Bruno Shulz spent the majority of life in his hometown of Drohobych, Poland. After studying architecture, Shulz became a teacher of drawing at a local school, and used his skill as an artist to provide illustrations for his books. Although his output was relatively small, the powerful imaginative content of his writing caught the attention of both the literary world and the world of film. Shulz’s first short stories were published fairly late in his life, in 1934. Sklepy Cynamonowe (‘The Cinnamon Shops’) is also known as The Street of Crocodiles in English-speaking countries, and was later turned into a film (1986) and an award-winning theatre piece (1992). This first book was followed three years later by Sanatorium Under the Sign of the Hourglass, which also became a successful film. Shulz received the prestigious Golden Laurel award from the Polish Academy of Literature in 1938.

The manuscripts that Shulz was known to have been working on during the Second World War have never been found. In 1939 Drohobych was occupied by the Soviet Union, and when the Nazis invaded Russia in 1941 Shulz was forced to move into the Jewish ghetto. For a short time he was protected by a Nazi officer who admired his paintings, and even commissioned a mural in his home from Shulz. Shortly after the mural was completed, Shulz was shot by a Gestapo officer. The mural was painted over and forgotten about until 2001, when it was discovered, restored, and transported to the Yad Vashem Holocaust Museum in Jerusalem.

China: the country that can copy anything

We seem to talk about China quite a bit on this blog (see Ben's report on Apple here and my post on China's new copyright registration system here): the economic boom which it has been enjoying for the last decade, coupled with its "get rich now, fix problems later" attitude means that the country has widely-publicised problems with copyright infringement. The latest example being wholesale copying of an as yet uncompleted building, the Wangjing SOHO in Beijing.


An example of Zaha Hadid's designs

© Associated Fabrication

The SOHO building comprises three curving towers. It was designed by the Iraqi-British architect, Dame Zaha Hadid, who recently designed the Aquatics Centre for the London Olympics and who no fewer than  11 current projects in China. The SOHO towers are currently under construction, yet a group of pirate architects and construction teams is already building a copy of the towers in Chongqing , in southern China. Embarrassingly, the pirates look set to complete their building before the original is finished.

According to the German newspaper Der Spiegel, Yet You Yunting, a Shanghai-based lawyer has said that China's copyright law includes protection for works of architecture and that "SOHO could have a good chance of winning litigation in this case." However he says that "even if the judge rules in favor of SOHO, the court will not force the defendant to pull the building down. But it could order the payment of compensation."

Zaha Hadid is said to have a philosophical stance on the copying of her designs: If future generations of these cloned buildings display innovative mutations, "that could be quite exciting." I wonder if the financial backers of the Wangjing SOHO project feel the same way?

You can see a picture of the Wangjing SOHO towers here.

They died in 1942 --- No.10: George Michael Cohan

From the pen of guest contributor Miriam Levenson comes some fascinating information about George Michael Cohan, the tenth in the series of twelve creative talents whose deaths in 1942 resulted in the release of their works into the public domain earlier this week in 'life-plus-70' copyright jurisdictions.

George Michael Cohan (1878-1942)

Cohan’s Irish Catholic parents were travelling vaudeville performers, and George joined them on the stage from his infancy – progressing from prop to singer, dancer and violinist. Together with his older sister, the family formed a troupe called ‘The Four Cohans’. As a teenager, George began writing original songs and skits for his family act which caught the attention of Broadway. George was 15 years old when he made his Broadway debut, and sold his first songs to a national publisher. He never looked back, and by 1901 he wrote, directed, produced and starred in his first Broadway musical for The Four Cohans. 

George’s first big hit on Broadway was Little Johnny Jones in 1903, which featured two of his famous songs – 'Give my Regards to Broadway' and 'The Yankee Doodle Boy'. During the First World War, 'You’re a Grand Old Flag' and 'Over There' became a hit with American soldiers and public alike, and Cohan was awarded the Congressional Gold Medal by President Roosevelt for his contribution to national morale – the first person from the artistic world to be thus honoured.

Cohan’s catchy melodies and brilliant lyrics made him one of the leading Tin Pan Alley songwriters, and by 1920 he had produced over 300 original songs and more than 50 musicals, plays and revues on Broadway. Although Cohan’s fame rests mainly on his output of songs, he made a name for himself as a ‘serious actor’ as well during his lifetime. To Cohan, dance was not just ‘razzle dazzle’, but a powerful means of heightening the drama. He was one of the earliest pioneers of the ‘book musical’ genre, where songs and dances are fully integrated into a well-made plot. Today, an eight-foot bronze statue of Cohan stands in Times Square at Broadway – a unique tribute to ‘the man who owned Broadway’.

They died in 1942 -- No.9: U.V. Swaminatha Iyer

The first Tamil to be recorded in the 1709 Blog's roll-call of twelve writers and creators whose works entered the public domain at the beginning of 2013 in life-plus-70 countries, the multi-talented U.V. Swaminatha Iyer, is brought to light by guest contributor Miriam Levenson, who writes:

U. V. Swaminatha Iyer (1855-1942)

Known as Tamil Thatha, ‘Grandfather of Tamil’, Swaminatha Iyer was a scholar and researcher. The contribution he made to classical Tamil literature and music is immeasurable. Swaminatha Iyer was born into a poor family in a small village. His father was a musician and encouraged him to pursue a similar trade, but Swaminatha Iyer decided to concentrate on the study of Tamil. At the age of 25, he was appointed a Tamil teacher at the Government Arts College of Kumbakonam following a rigorous selection process. He was a charismatic teacher, adored by his students despite the fact that Tamil was regarded as an inferior language at the time. In the 1880s very few Tamil literary works were available for study – just a handful of minor poems. As a result, Tamil was ignored by most people in favour of Sanskrit and English. 

Swaminatha Iyer took it upon himself to try and recover the hidden treasures of Tamil literature by searching for missing palm leaf manuscripts. Alongside his teaching, Swaminatha Iyer conducted long and arduous journeys across Tamil Nadu and beyond, visiting every hamlet and knocking on every door. It was a formidable search that lasted until his death – but it was extremely fruitful. Swaminatha Iyer collected 3,067 original ancient manuscripts, published almost 100 books on Tamil literature, and unearthed a rich and beautiful tradition of poetry, devotional works and Puranas (Hindu, Buddhist and Jain religious texts detailing history, philosophy, genealogy and cosmology).

Swaminatha Iyer’s publications were not merely transcriptions of the manuscripts he discovered. He edited them, adding extensive footnotes, indices and commentaries, as well as biographical information about the authors. Swaminatha Iyer’s contribution to Tamil culture also extended to the discovery of Tamil music sources from previous eras. Until these discoveries were made, very little had been known about Tamil music history. Swaminatha Iyer’s publications paved the way for extensive research into the presence of Tamil music in the earlier centuries. In honour of these contributions, the title of Mahamahopathiyaya (literally, ‘Greatest of Great Teachers’) was conferred on Swaminatha Iyer, as well as an honorary doctorate from the University of Madras and, more recently, a commemorative postage stamp.

Exit Festival and Foreign Producers of Phonograms: New Challenge for O.F.P.S.

Bogdan Ivanišević, Head of IP Practice Group at BDK Advokati in Serbia brings us news of a recent challenge to the recoded music collection society in Serbia, by one of Serbia’s biggest live events, the Exit Festival. 

Bogdan explains that back in May 2012, The Serbian Commercial Appellate Court denied a request by the Organization of Phonogram Producers of Serbia (O.F.P.S.) to collect royalties for communication to the public of Italian sound recordings in a Belgrade restaurant. A few months later, the same court issued a decision in an ongoing case that might again be the cause of a headache to the collecting society and this time much larger financial stakes are involved because the party opposing O.F.P.S. is the well known “Exit” Festival in Serbia. 

Exit Festival, 2008

The annual Exit music festival in Novi Sad was first staged in 2000 at the picturesque Petrovaradin fortress on the banks of the Danube, and the festival is now well known internationally and attracts tens of thousands of fans from all over Europe.  The list of celebrities who have played live at the “Exit” festival includes Pet Shop Boys, Morrissey, Billy Idol, The Cult, Guns N' Roses, Franz Ferdinand, Stereo MC's, Iggy Pop, Massive Attack, Beastie Boys, Snoop Dogg, The Prodigy, Moby, Patti Smith, Chemical Brothers, and numerous others. The setting at the amazing Petrovaradin fortress only adds to the appeal. Little wonder then that huge crowds gather every summer to enjoy the music, the sights, and the company of fans with whom they feel culturally close.

O.F.P.S. claimed that the organisers of Exit owed almost 350,000 Euros in unpaid royalties from the use of Serbian and foreign sound recordings during the two festivals held in 2007 and 2008. 

In March 2001, the Commercial Court in Novi Sad granted one half of the requested sum to O.F.P.S. but on 20 September 2012 the Commercial Appellate Court annulled the verdict and ordered a retrial. Similar to the previous case (see http://www.bdklegal.com/code/navigate.php?Id=283&bid=90) where the Commercial Appellate Court ruled that O.F.P.S. had no valid claim to royalties for communication to the public of Italian sound recordings in a Belgrade restaurant. O.F.P.S. did not provide any evidence that it had entered into an agreement with a corresponding collecting society in Italy, by virtue of which it could collect royalties. 

The Commercial Appellate Court again demanded that O.F.P.S. should prove it had standing to sue – or otherwise they would lose the case. 

O.F.P.S. sought to collect royalties from “Exit” for the use of recorded music before concerts, during breaks, and after concerts, as well as royalties for the use of recorded music played (communicated to the public) at the various stages independent of any concerts. For O.F.P.S. to lawfully act on behalf of the foreign producers of phonograms and collect royalties for them, it has to prove that in the relevant period (2007 and 2008) it had concluded appropriate agreements with the relevant foreign collecting societies. 

The court of Novi Sad inferred the existence of such agreements from the grant on 12 April 2005 of a general authorization for O.F.P.S. to operate. The Serbian Intellectual Property Bureau (IP Bureau), which issued the authorization, referred, in the April 2005 decision, to a report submitted by the O.F.P.S. as part of the application, listing bilateral agreements which the organization had concluded up to that date. As the court in Novi Sad read it, with the decision in April 2005 the IP Bureau renewed the authorization to O.F.P.S. first granted in 2002. 

The Commercial Appellate Court differently interpreted the general authorization granted by the IP Bureau in April 2005. The appellate body concluded that in 2005 O.F.P.S. applied for issuance – afresh – of a general authorization, rather than for a renewal of the earlier authorization. Here, the wording of the Commercial Appellate Court’s decision becomes fuzzy (as, unfortunately, it often is in decisions issued by courts in Serbia), but a plausible reading of what the court says is that any prior agreements between O.F.P.S.and foreign collecting societies cannot be deemed to have carried into the new authorization granted by the IP Bureau. In the court’s words: 

"The fact that after the first authorization from 2002, another authorization was issued does not mean that what occurred was a renewal in relation to which the fulfilment of the condition concerning agreements with foreign organizations is to be assessed. Therefore, with respect to the period of validity of the first authorization the plaintiff has to prove that it has standing to sue for compensation for the use of phonograms the rights of which are held by foreign persons, because the statutory presumption [that an organization for the collective management of copyright or related rights is authorized to act on behalf of the rights’ holders] does not apply vis-à-vis foreign rights’ holders. " 

What is not in doubt is that the Commercial Appellate Court does not consider it proved that O.F.P.S. was authorized in 2007 and 2008 to collect royalties on behalf of foreign producers of phonograms. The renewal of O.F.P.S’ general authorization to operate, from April 2005, is not proof. In a closing paragraph, the court instructed the Commercial Court in Novi Sad to establish in the retrial which phonograms were used at the “Exit” festivals in 2007 and 2008, whether those were domestic or foreign phonograms, and whether the plaintiff was authorized to claim legal protection on behalf of the foreign rights’ holders. 

It remains to be seen if O.F.P.S. will be able to provide the requested agreements with the relevant foreign collecting societies as evidence. If that proves impossible, O.F.P.S.will be left only with the statutory presumption of the authorization to act on behalf of producers of phonograms. Here, O.F.P.S. may run into another difficulty. The first-instance court said in the quashed judgment that “drawing an expert report on the share of the use of phonograms in comparison to the rest of the festival program would be almost impossible, i.e. unreasonably burdensome, having in mind that the festivals in 2007 and 2008 lasted four days each, with tens of thousands of different songs performed at different stages”. The task of establishing which portion of the phonograms communicated to the public in 2007 and 2008 was produced domestically would be, if anything, even more daunting. 

Bogdan  Ivanišević JD LLM 

The copyright in this blog remains with BDK Advokati (c) 2012

http://www.bdklegal.com/code/navigate.php?Id=2

OFPS http://ofps.org.rs/

On a personal note I should make it clear that I advise Yourope, the European festivals association, and the Exit Festival is a member of Yourope. Although I am in no way involved in this matter, I have even been to the festival in 2007 - and what a great event!

They died in 1942 -- No.8: Saint Edith Stein

The eighth in the series of personalities whose works fell into the public domain in life-plus-70 countries at the beginning of 2013, brought to 1709 Blog readers by guest contributor Miriam Levenson, is Saint Edith Stein. Explains Miriam:

Saint Edith Stein (1891-1942)

Edith Stein’s was a unique journey. Born into a religious Jewish family in Breslau, Germany, Edith initially admired her mother’s strong faith. Nevertheless, as a teenager she declared herself an atheist and went to study philosophy. Although her work On the Problem of Empathy gained Edith a doctorate and a place on her university’s faculty, the publication of further theses was refused on the grounds of her being a woman. 

During the summer holidays of 1921 Edith read the biography of St Teresa of Avila, and was inspired to convert to Catholicism. Following her baptism early in 1922, Edith left the university and took up a teaching post at the Dominican Nuns’ School in Speyer. She continued to write about philosophy and faith, and also translated Thomas Aquinas's De Veritate into German. In 1933, anti-Semitic legislation passed by the Nazis forced Edith to abandon all teaching posts. She joined the Discalced Carmelite monastery in Cologne, adopting the name Teresa Benedicta of the Cross. It was there that she wrote her metaphysical book Finite and Eternal Being, which tries to reconcile the philosophies of Aquinas and her former teacher Husserl. As the Nazi threat increased, Edith’s order had her transferred to Holland. While there, she continued to write, but she was not safe. In 1942 the Reichskomissar of the Netherlands ordered the arrest of all Jewish converts, who had previously been spared. Edith and her sister Rosa, also a convert, were transported to Auschwitz where they died in the gas chambers.

Edith was beatified as a martyr by Pope John Paul II in 1987, and canonised 11 years later following the miraculous recovery of an ill young girl called Teresa Benedicta McCarthy. Although Edith died at the hands of the Nazis as a Jew, the Catholic Church concluded that her deportation was a result of the Dutch episcopacy’s public condemnation of Nazism, and that she died to uphold the moral position of the Church. Today, Edith Stein is one of the six patron saints of Europe, and many of her philosophical writings are available in English translation.