Lawyer says unpublished farewell letters cannot be paraphrased

Copyright law may prevent even paraphrasing two unpublished farewell letters by poet Juhan Viiding, attorney Maarja Pild-Freiberg told ERR, as a dispute over their inclusion in writer Mihkel Mutt’s biography continues.

Mutt said on Tuesday that he had received a demand from a law firm to immediately remove his book, Juhani evangeelium, from sale because it published the letters. He said he would not publish Viiding’s farewell letters in any form in future, but would consult his lawyer about withdrawing the book.

Within just over an hour of the demand becoming public, physical copies had sold out at most bookshops, although the book was initially still available from online retailers. The e-book could be purchased until October 30, the deadline set in the demand letter.

Pild-Freiberg said people who already own a physical copy would not have it taken away, but those who have ordered the book should not assume they will receive it in its current form. She said the order might be cancelled and the money refunded.

Some social media users have suggested that Mutt could retell the letters in his own words in a new edition. Pild-Freiberg said that could lead to another legal dispute: copyright exceptions for quoting or using protected works in current-affairs reporting generally apply only when the work has already been lawfully published.

She said the letters had been widely seen, including in photographs shared online, and acknowledged that the legal position seemed at odds with common sense. But, she said, the law could still prevent people from quoting or paraphrasing them if they had never been lawfully published.

Mutt later said he had not considered the letters to be works of authorship. He had thought the issue concerned privacy rules, under which a person’s death must have occurred at least 10 years earlier, or in some cases 20 years earlier, before certain information can be published. Pild-Freiberg said the letters were creative works and that copyright in them passed to Viiding’s heirs for 70 years after his death. She added that not every letter or email qualifies for copyright protection.