\n<\/p>\n
BASEL, SWITZERLAND – EQS Newswire – 2 February 2022 – Works by Anne Frank
\nhave been uploaded onto a Belgian website, which is run by a letterbox company
\nand uses geo-blocking. The letterbox company was set up by the Anne Frank
\nStichting (AFS) and Huygens ING, an organisation with links to the Royal
\nNetherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (KNAW). The Anne Frank Fonds Basel
\n(AFF) instigated a lawsuit against the letterbox company and against the Anne
\nFrank Stichting and KNAW, as this covert bypassing of the protected copyright
\nmeant that the works of Anne Frank were also easily accessible in the
\nNetherlands. The court rejected the AFF’s lawsuit.<\/p>\n
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The court did not take into account the fact that geo-blocking is routinely
\nbypassed nowadays by means of a proxy server or a VPN. This means that the
\nBelgian website and the diaries are easily accessible from the Netherlands.
\nNeither did it consider the offensive covert actions of the Anne Frank
\nStichting and KNAW through the letterbox company.<\/p>\n
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John D. Goldsmith, President of the AFF, is concerned: “The verdict
\ncould mean that in the future the works of Anne Frank could be made unlawfully
\navailable to the whole world by anybody in any country where the copyrights
\nhave expired. We will defend copyrights and take the appropriate measures in
\norder to create legal certainty for the Anne Frank Fonds Basel, the publishing
\nhouses and its readers.”<\/p>\n
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Statement by the Anne Frank Fonds Basel on the court verdict of 1 February
\n2022<\/p>\n