The Baker Street Blog: The noted Sherlockian scholar, Baker Street Irregular and prominent attorney Leslie Klinger, editor of The New Annotated Sherlock Holmes, The Sherlock Holmes Reference Library and The Grand Game: A Celebration of Sherlockian Scholarship, to name a few, has filed a civil lawsuit against the Conan Doyle Estate to determine that the characters of Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson are in fact in the public domain.
6 comments:
I always get somewhat confused as to how exactly copyright works. In this case, how complicated is the transition from copyright to public domain? I wonder, does the estate have copyright on the characters Sherlock Holmes and John Watson, or do they only have copyright on the 10 stories that have yet to pass into common domain. There seems to be more issues regarding copyright in general recently, and I'm not quite sure if this is just me noticing it more, or if there is something fundamental about the current copyright system that is not working in the modern world. Also, the article mentions US copyright law, but what about British law? As the estate is British, would one have to abide by the British or American copyright system?
Agreeing with the commenter above me, I am also not sure of all the ins and outs of US and international copyright law. The interesting thing about this article is the fact that we are talking about two different national copyright laws, American and British. The estate is British, and the books were first published in the UK, and so I think that means that something can't enter the public domain internationally until the British copyright system expires on those works. In my mind, that would mean that US copyright law isn't really applicable.
The interesting thing is that the copyright of all Sherlock Holmes stories expired in the UK in 1980, and all Sherlock Holmes stories and characters are in the public domain there. That means that even though the Sherlock Holmes Estate is British, and the British copyright system puts the works in the public domain, the US copyright system apparently still has jurisdiction over the 10 works that were published after 1923.
This is a really interesting conundrum. I, like the first two commenters, question what happens when copyright laws start breaching international borders. Clearly the US still has the last 10 works under copyright. Does that mean that the characters themselves are still under copyright, or that just the plot lines of the last 10 stories are under copyright? I'm not surprised to see an article about this though, with the amount of modern use of the Sherlock Holmes characters recently. Between the creation of the tv show Sherlock on the BBC and Elementary on CBS, I'm surprised this issue wasn't brought up sooner. Perhaps those networks are large enough and rich enough that they simply paid the estate?
Copyright law is surprisingly fascinating. At first my thought was along the line of, well if they still have copyright on any books, then don't they still have the characters? But what stood out to me was the part where she states that because the characters are established in all the public domain works, then the characters are public domain provided you don't reference the copyrighted works. That makes sense to me and it seems that a thing like this really should be in the public domain by now, although so should mickey mouse. I just spent a few minutes reading about copyright laws and extensions and learned that the most recent extension dubbed the "Mickey Mouse Protection Act" applies to things made in 1923 onward, (Mickey Mouse was invented in 1923). Copyright law appears to be much more about money then actual law, but it looks like in this case the little man could win, and we could start using Sherlock Holmes references without fear of punishment hanging over our heads. I hope she wins!
This article reminds me of the one two weeks ago about the batmobile being classified as copyright. I think in this case, the character should be placed under copyright as soon as it is first introduced to the public. Then it should enjoy it's time under the copyright protection, but when that is over, the character should fall into the public domain entirely. It does not matter if there are more stories to be told. The creator can continue to create and copyright stories for the character, in which case those stories cannot be used without consent. But the character is free to be presented in any story, regardless of who made it up.
Ninety-five years is enough. If the members of the Arthur Conan Doyle estate haven't had enough time to squeeze whatever royalties they can out of the legacy of Mr. Doyle, perhaps they should consider creating something worthwhile themselves. We have an obsession with ownership. I can't see any reason why anyone but the creator should have any claim to ownership in the first place, and even that concept I find shaky. Even more questionable is the fact that the owners of rights are often not even people the creator had anything to do with, and would have no desire to benefit. The fact that Disney can make money off of the work of any of the thousands of stories to which they have "secured rights" but no one else can is the height of make-believe to me. Like the stock market, copyright is this thing we've all created and now believe is real, the way things are. All creative undertakings are derivative in some way, but buying up and hoarding stories like a kindergartner at recess is a particularly capital way to make art, and I can't stand its dominance of our culture.
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