An academic and a French MP are planning to publish Anne Frank's diary online for free tomorrow.

University lecturer Olivier Ertzscheid and French MP Isabelle Attard say New Year's Day marks 70 years after the author's death, and therefore European copyright laws have expired.

But they have been met with opposition by the diary's publisher - The Anne Frank Fund - who argues copyright for the translators of the diary is still in effect.

European copyright laws protect the author's rights to their work for 70 years after their death.

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Copyright: Public domain activist Olivier Ertzscheid and French MP Isabelle Attard plan to publish Anne Frank's diary tomorrow as they say it no longer falls within European copyright laws

Ertzscheid describes himself as a 'activist' when it comes to public domain, and has called the pushback against publication 'appalling', adding that anti-Semitic works such as Adolf Hitler's 'Mein Kampf' will enter the public domain on Friday.



Iconic: Anne Frank's diary has sold 30 million copies sold since its publication in 1947. Above, Anne's father Otto holds a a Golden Pan Award for the sale of one million copies

Anne Frank, who penned the historic diary during World War II, died at the age of 15 in the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp in 1945.

Her diary is one of the primary pieces of literature detailing life in Nazi-era Europe, with more than 30 million copies sold since its publication in 1947.

The lecturer and researcher had in October published on his website two French versions of the book, only to take them down after the Livre du Poche publisher sent a formal notice stating that copyright for translators was still in effect.

French parliament member Isabelle Attard also plans to publish the book in its original Dutch on January 1.

The Anne Frank Fund, based in Basel, Switzerland, holds the rights to publication and told AFP that it had sent a letter threatening legal action if the diary was published.

The Fund argues that the book is a posthumous work, for which copyright extends 50 years past the publication date, and that a 1986 version published by the Dutch State Institute for War Documentation (NIOD) is under copyright until at least 2037.