Endstra back seat talks copyright-protected?

On 30 May 2008, the Dutch Supreme Court handed down its ruling in the case between the sons of Willem Endstra, who was assassinated on 17 May 2004, and reporters Bart Middelburg and Paul Vugts and their publisher. The core of the dispute was whether the back seat talks were protected by copyright.

Before his death, Willem Endstra had had fifteen secret conversations with officers of the Dutch Criminal Intelligence Unit of the Amsterdam police in the back seat of a car. Bart Middelburg and Paul Vugts transcribed the discussions, which the Nationale Recherche had put on official record, in a book entitled 'De Endstra Tapes'. The version that the reporters made of the official record mainly leaves out the “uh’s”, pauses and specific private information.

On release of 'De Endstra Tapes', the Endstra heirs took legal action against the publisher and the reporters, seeking recall and destruction of all books published. However, both in the first instance and on appeal, the courts found that the back seat talks were not protected by copyright, because Willem Endstra had not consciously decide to create a work as to the form of the talks and because he did not knowingly intended to be the author of a creation.

Precedent shows that a work bearing its own original character and the personal mark of the creator is protected by copyright. In this case, the Supreme Court held that the Amsterdam Court of Appeal was wrong to impose the extra requirements of the creator intending to produce a work, consciously deciding to create a work and knowingly having picked the form that the work had. The Supreme Court therefore set aside the judgment of the Amsterdam Court of Appeal and referred the case to the Court of Appeal in The Hague.

It is now up to that court to rule whether the back seat talks bear their own original character and the personal mark of the creator. Until then, the book – a bestseller by now- is widely available in bookshops and elsewhere.

For more information, please contact mr. Ricardo Dijkstra, Intellectual Property practice.

Return to newsletter »