German copyright law grants an author copyright for 70 years after their death. Hitler died in 1945 so that means “Mein Kampf” will enter the public domain in that country in 2015. Or will it?
There is a well-known German law banning the dissemination of Nazi ideologies which was put in place after the fall of the Third Reich. Germans (including many Jewish groups) claim that this law trumps any right the infamous work has to freely enter the public domain. Opponents counter that the diaries of Goebbels and Himmler are easily available in Germany already (as is Mein Kampf for anyone with an Internet connection).
German scholars want the work to enter the public domain so they can prepare an annotated version of “Mein Kampf” for 2015 while the government fears that Neo-Nazi groups would prepare their own propagandized version.
Libraries get a mention in the linked article as well.
“Stephan J. Kramer, secretary general of the Central Council of Jews in Germany
in Berlin, said the publication of “Mein Kampf” continued to split the
Jewish community in Germany, with many Holocaust survivors opposing its
publication. “I have the highest respect for this opinion, but on the
other hand I’m saying very openly: The copyright is going to be waived
anyway. It’s a matter of time before the book is available in shops and
libraries,” Mr. Kramer said.” I've already discussed my own early exposure to Mein Kampf on this blog and I'm pretty sure it's clear what side of the debate I'm on – it is Freedom to Read Week after all! (I should do a post and try to list which books I think *should* be banned, if any. That'd be a fun challenge.)
I was trying to think of a good clip to feature for Music Monday now that it's Freedom to Read Week. I thought about posting Elvis' infamous early Milton Berle appearance which led to him only being filmed from the waist up when he later appeared on The Ed Sullivan Show. But that's pretty tame by today's standards – sort of like how people still want to challenge “Catcher in the Rye” because the words “heck” and “gosh-darn” are in there.
Then I remembered a song I heard when I first moved into college dorms – pretty much fresh off the farm at 17 – when the most rebellious music I knew was Def Leppard.
I actually didn't even hear the song from the shock rock outfit, the Mentors (and until about five minutes ago, had never heard it.) Instead, a a floormate quoted some of the lyrics to me and they have been seared into my brain ever since.
Still, that famous line about “I may not agree with what you say but I'll defend to the death, your right to say it” applies here. It has to because if it doesn't, freedom of expression is absolutely meaningless.
I'm actually nervous about hitting the “Submit” button this post because this is some pretty disturbing stuff and people always confuse the defense of something with an endorsement. But ultimately, that's what Freedom of Expression is about. I am not going to run out and buy a Mentors CD (probably – unless I need to shock some other sheltered small town kid!) but some people do and did. Some people went to their shows. As long as there's nothing illegal happening, that's completely within their rights – the band's rights, the fans' rights and according to the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, that's within anyone's rights (as is your right *not* to click through to any lyrics or music I link to in this post. And trust me, the lines I quoted in the title of this post are pretty much the only two lines in the song that I felt comfortable doing so!)
I'll save you the pain and link to a clip of the live version of the song where the lyrics are hard to understand (here's a link to the album version of the song for the braver souls among you – I won't censor but I will warn you that you can't un-hear this song once you hear it!)
[Edit: I forgot to bring it back to Elvis the Pelvis like I originally wanted to. One of the strongest anti-censorship arguments that I know is to compare the comments made by people who were disgusted by Elvis with those who were/are disgusted with Eldon Hoke below – “filthy”, “depraved”, “sick”, “demonic”, etc. Notice something? They're the exact same words! To me, that shows that the people who hated Elvis in the 1950's are the exact same type of people who hated Eldon Hoke in the 1990's – even though those same anti-Hoke people in the 1990's probably liked Elvis, took family vacations to Graceland and will shell out for the new Cirque du Soleil Elvis show the next time they're in Vegas. So to me, it's *really* important to keep in mind that it's all very relative. Something that offends me today (and Eldon Hoke definitely comes really close!) will probably be a Broadway show that Pace goes to see with his family in thirty years.]
It's extremely rare that you'll hear me advocating for a book to be challenged. But as my former classmate (and published author) Corey Redekop asks in his post on this year's Freedom to Read Week celebrations: “could you challenge me? Call a
library and demand that I be taken off the shelves? Nothing sells a
person on a book like a little controversy.”
So if you want to help out a fellow librarian, go to your local library this week and put in a challenge against “Shelf Monkey”. It could actually be fun – like a banned book flash mob – and since Corey's book has censorship as one of its central themes – it'd be a perfect fit.
Hmmm, I started this post with my tongue firmly in cheek but I'm talking myself into this…I think it'd make a really good statement about censorship if a book that is firmly against censorship had a bunch of challenges during Freedom to Read Week, especially if they all used the same reason. Something like “This book is wrong with its theme that censorship is wrong.”
It's a bit of a conflict of interest (or at least potentially awkward) for us public librarians to do this at our home libraries. So hopefully you academic librarians out there pick up the torch (or we in public libraries could put in a challenge of Corey's book at a neighbouring town – that would work too!)
A web site that allows you to “play” the HTML of any web site. This isn't as straight-forward as it sounds…
The CodeOrgan analyses the “body” content of any web page and
translates that content into music. The CodeOrgan uses a complex
algorithm to define the key, synth style and drum pattern most
appropriate to the page content.
Firstly, the CodeOrgan scans the page content and removes all
characters not found in the musical scale (A to G), and then analyses
the remaining characters to find the most commonly used “note”. If this
is an even number the page is translated into the major pentatonic
scale of that particular note, it becomes minor if there is an uneven
number.
Secondly, the CodeOrgan defines which synthesizer to use. This is based
upon the total number characters used on the webpage – there are
currently 10 synthesizer effects and the one chosen is picked based
upon the percentage of content.
Lastly, the CodeOrgan selects a drum loop based upon the ratio of
characters on the page versus the number of characters that are
actually musical notes – there are currently 10 different drum loops to
pick from.
“I don't know if any two technology companies have been better suited for each other. There's already been rumours of a strategic partnership
and, like the recent YouTube purchase, I think a formal partnership of
this type would be an ideal situation. Combine the technological
expertise and deep pockets of Google with the open-access policies and
“third wave of the Net” cultural impact of Wikipedia and many good
things are guaranteed to happen.”
…although I have no idea what I meant with the reference to YouTube? I
think I was saying that Google should put money into Wikipedia but
obviously, I didn't think Google would be able to buy Wikipedia outright…or did I?
The BC Library Association's Intellectual Freedom Committee has an unofficial blog with lots of good reading.
(I was going to title this post “The only BC-related post you'll read on a blog this week that doesn't mention the Olympics.” But then I realised that this would be like the Hawthorne Effect of blogs. )
Hard to believe that today marks two years since Willie P. Bennett passed away. Fred Eaglesmith has apparently started covering a Willie P. song at the end of his concerts as a tribute to his long-time sideman…
Rumours were swirling about the top secret torch bearer who would light the Olympic Cauldron during the Opening Ceremonies last Friday. The best suggestion I heard was that they were going to use current video editing techniques or another recently unveiled technology such as a hologram to have Terry Fox “run” into the stadium, symbolically ending the cross-Canada run he started almost thirty years ago.
In fact, if I'm being completely honest (and if you'll indulge a slight tangent), I think I'd vote Terry Fox over Tommy Douglas as Canada's Greatest Canadian. Because no matter how much I admire Tommy Douglas or agree with his politics, the difference maker is that Tommy Douglas was an elected politician doing what he felt was right and, as is inevitable in the political arena, there was opposition to him, both at the time and still today. Terry Fox was a young everyman without an agenda (other than defeating cancer obviously) who was like some sort of tragic Greek hero with the epic journey he took on for himself.
“Many years after I saw him run a couple of consecutive marathons –
his 136th and 137th or something like it – I ran one myself. I trained
for it for six months, on two legs, and spent the day after on my back.
When Terry finished a marathon, he had something to eat, maybe endured
an event of glad-handing (in order to raise more money) in some
godforsaken town, grabbed a few hours sleep, and then got up and did it
again.”
