Traditionelle Verlagsprodukte im Lichte gesellschaftlich gewandelter Anschauungen nicht-diskriminierender Sprache und rechtlichen Vorgaben

Traditional publication products are the object of tensions between the interests of authors regarding copyright, the changing opinions of the public, and the economic interests of publishers. The goal of this paper is to develop approaches to publishing traditional publication products with contents that modern public opinion deems offensive. The research question is: What are concrete steps a publishing house can take to keep ethically or legally no longer publishable publication products in their range of offers? To answer, the contents of Jim Button and Luke the Engine Driver by Michael Ende were analysed. Specifically, it was examined whether the novel contains unconstitutional or youth-corrupting elements. The analysis shows that the indexation according to child protection is possible. Building on this, the following approaches were developed: modification of future author’s agreements, transmedial processing of the material, addition of supplementary material, translation to non-discriminatory language, and editing the original work. Which of these approaches is suitable for the product depends on the legal agreements between author and publisher.