Otto Frank is not the co-author of the original diary writings of Anne Frank. Anne Frank is the sole author of the A and B versions of the diary and short stories.
The expiry of the copyright on Anne Frank’s diary differs from country to country, depending on the country’s copyright laws.
In the Netherlands, the European directive (70 years after the author’s death) applies as the basic rule for the duration of protection by copyright. Due to transitional measures that were put in place when this directive was introduced, in certain cases a different term of protection applies. Because of this, in the Netherlands some parts of the A and B versions of Anne Frank’s diaries - in particular the sections that were first published in 1986 in the critical edition of the diaries of Anne Frank by the Netherlands State Institute for War Documentation (now the NIOD Institute for War, Holocaust and Genocide Studies) - remain protected by copyright for a longer period.
The scientific research on Anne Frank’s writings is still in progress. We are currently considering the way in which the research results will be published. Any publication of the research results will take place within the applicable legal framework, including the copyright law.