A French publishing company, Les Editions de Minuit, has brought criminal charges against a professor in Argentina for making Spanish translations of classic works of philosophy available for free on the internet, including Nietzsche, Heidegger and Derrida. In February, Les Editions de Minuit filed a complaint which was then sent to the French Embassy in Argentina and, probably because of multilateral law enforcement treaties, the Argentina Book Chamber brought legal action against Professor Horacio Potel.
Ironically, Les Éditions de Minuit began as an underground publishing company in Paris in 1941, as part of the resistance to the German occupation of France. The Nazi occupiers controlled all media and publishing and, therefore, Les Éditions de Minuit’s founders were fighting against state control of information.
