Missing heirs’ permission can keep manuscripts unpublished

A biography by writer Mihkel Mutt has drawn attention over the unauthorised publication of poet Juhan Viiding’s farewell letters, ERR reports. Viiding’s heirs have demanded that Mutt remove the letters from his book, “Juhani evangeelium”.

Under Estonian copyright law, authors have the exclusive right to decide how their work is used and to receive income from it. After an author’s death, those rights pass to their heirs for 70 years, after which the work enters the public domain.

Letters involve two separate rights: copyright in the text belongs to the writer or their heirs, while ownership of the physical letter belongs to its recipient. The recipient may give away or sell the letter, but cannot publish it without permission.

Tiina Tammer, owner of the Tammerraamat publishing house and an experienced publisher, said permission should be secured from everyone concerned before producing sensitive books. She said mistakes can still happen, including when publishers miscalculate how long copyright protection lasts. The term runs until the end of the calendar year in which the 70-year period expires.

Tammer said that in one case she had unknowingly used an image on a book cover without permission. After a meeting with the heir, she apologised. She said finding heirs can be difficult, and publishing even one poem may require approval from six heirs. Estonia has no comprehensive heirs’ database, she said. A small amount of information about children’s writers and artists is available through the Estonian Children’s Literature Centre.

If heirs do not grant permission, a work may not be published. Tammer said she had received another manuscript concerning Viiding, but declined to publish it after finding poems in the text until the author obtained permission from the heirs. She added that heirs must also be paid for the use of poems.

Varrak publishing house editor-in-chief Krista Kaer cited the disputes surrounding James Joyce’s works and his heir Stephen Joyce. Kaer said he closely monitored how the writer’s work was used, objecting even to displays of Joyce manuscripts and letters at the National Library of Ireland and to a school play that quoted him. In one case, his demands were so high that an anthology of contemporary Irish literature planned by Cork University included blank pages in place of Joyce’s work.