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Sherlock Holmes Is in the Public Domain, American Judge Rules
- grogenaut 13y agoTime to go publish 50 $.99 android / ios apps.
- sciguy77 13y agoWho wants to make a Sherlock Holmes video game?
- pavpanchekha 13y agoI am fascinated by the nuance that went into this decision. The argument by the Doyle estate intrigues me: they claim that the characters themselves (as a sort of platonic form) were not fully developed until Doyle stopped writing. For example, they would argue that in every story, Watson had once played rugby, though this fact wasn't published until a later story. Thus this aspect of Watson's character is still protected. The real meat of their argument is that the pieces that were "discovered" after 1923 are so central to Watson that there's no un-copyright-ed Watson left if those pieces are still protected. (But the judge rejected that argument.) This seems sensible if you imagine Sir Doyle "discovering", not "inventing", Watson.
- dragonwriter 13y ago> This seems sensible if you imagine Sir Doyle "discovering", not "inventing", Watson. If you imagine that, then you would be imagining Watson right out of the scope of copyright, which covers creations, not discoveries.
- morley 13y agoI think you're distinction is a semantic one. pavpanchekha could have easily framed his observation as Sir Doyle "creating" aspects of Watson's character.
- dragonwriter 13y agoNo, the whole point was the distinction between "discovering" and "inventing", a distinction which would not exist if "discovering" was replaced with "creating".
- crygin 13y agoYou're not a Platonist, are you? Regardless, it would be plausible to imagine a character conceived of by an author, who has curious behaviors in early stories, the motivation for which is only revealed in a much later story. This would be an example of a process of "discovery" about a character, but this discovery is happening in the form of revelations in the text rather than by the act of the author. If you wanted to make the analogy more precise, you could imagine a character created with peculiar traits, and the author later realizes a single explanation for those traits which they had not originally conceived, which they then write into a story. In these two cases, the effect on the reader might be identical, but in one essential information about the character was held back and in one it was developed later. All of this is a little academic, though, since none of the information about Holmes & Watson in the post-1923 stories has a material effect on their characters, as ACD's estate attempted to argue.
- mburns 13y ago> In these two cases, the effect on the reader might be identical, but in one essential information about the character was held back and in one it was developed later. But we aren't talking about the reader. We're talking about the author. Plot reveals later in the story (that the reader experiences) have nothing to do with an author writing those things over time. If Doyle 'discovered' Watson (not created), then Watson is not copyrightable. If Doyle created Watson (which he clearly did, being the author of a fictitious character in a series of fictional novels and stories) then Doyle didn't "discover" anything, he just refined his creation.
- bluekitten 13y agoThat's an interesting argument, but I guess it fell flat because the work itself is subject to copyright, and someone else can now "invent" a Watson that never played rugby.
- ijk 13y agoThe irony is that the 10 post-1923 stories are mostly sub-par and include some of the most out-of-character moments. In my mind not using them is an improvement, though I doubt that my opinion is authoritative enough to influence the case.
- twocommas 13y ago"At a deep level, the act of discover and the act of creation are identical." -Kevin Kelly (1) Years ago I spoke with Kevin about this notion and it's relation to quantum mechanics. "Did the particle already exist in XYZ state (discover) or did you observation manifest (create) it." We agreed, it's the exact same thing. (1) http://kk.org/thetechnium/archives/2010/01/tending_the_gar.php http://kk.org/thetechnium/archives/2010/01/tending_the_gar.p...
- loceng 13y agoThis would leave the copyright open-ended forever, so long as they continued to evolve the character..
- pavpanchekha 13y agoWell, so in fact the court did strike down the Conan Doyle estate's interpretation of things, so we can continue talking about Conan Doyle creating, not discovering, the character of Watson. And you are right: siding with the Conan Doyle estate would raise questions. If you'll excuse me to snark for a moment, though: isn't that exactly what's happening with Mickey Mouse? The character keeps evolving and the copyright remains open-ended forever?
- chrismcb 13y agoNo that is not what is happening with Mickey Mouse. What is happening with Mickey Mouse is every time Steamboat Willie comes close to being released into public domain, the length of copyright is extended. Steamboat Willie came out after 1923, and is currently set to expire in 2023. Unless of course the law is changed to extended it.
- tzs 13y ago> But now, following a legal ruling, the deerstalker-wearing detective is headed to another destination: the public domain He wore what might have been a deerstalker in parts of two stories, and in both he was in a setting where a deerstalker would have been a normal hat to wear. Most of the time in most of the stories he was not in such a setting, and would have been wearing something else. It was important in his line of work to blend in, and you don't blend in by committing a fashion faux pas.
- rst 13y agoIn the Jeremy Brett TV series, an unusually faithful adaptation, Holmes is most commonly wearing a top hat.
- busterarm 13y agoGood.
- bnastic 13y agoLooking forward to seeing Mickey Mouse in the public domain in a few years?
- rwbt 13y agoConsidering how powerful Disney is, I am not hopeful that it will happen.
- mullingitover 13y agoI've thought about this, and I kinda wonder if there's more to it than the bad ol' media cartels flexing their muscle. Doesn't the government have an interest in maximizing its revenues? If so, is revenue maximized by limiting copyright, or by expanding it?
- A1kmm 13y agoOverall government revenue worldwide is maximised by balanced copyright - that promotes the more efficient creation of taxable creative works, and use of copyrighted works in business, by allowing reuse of public domain works, but still incentivises forward progress to further enlarge the pie of which the government gets a slice. I suspect that at the moment, balance means shortening copyright terms drastically. Overall campaign finance revenues, however, are maximised by supporting copyright expansion, because copyright holders who already own substantial collections of copyrighted works are willing to back politicians who support their interests, but there is no equally big pot of money for politicians in favour of balancing copyright. It is one of those cases where what is essentially legally sanctioned corruption allows for regulatory capture of the political process against the interests of the government and public.
- Houshalter 13y agoIronic considering Disney is famous for making films based on other people's stories.
- officemonkey 13y ago
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- adestefan 13y agoYou can still charge for a work that is in the public domain.
- hrasyid 13y agoPardon my ignorance, but shouldn't it be a "duh" that the copyright already expired?
- chrismcb 13y agoWhile I agree this should be a "duh." But the question is, the copyright for what? Some of the Holmes stories are still under copyright, and that is what they are arguing... Fortunately they are wrong.
- njharman 13y agoNot about the expired copyrights. But rather how any story using those same characters are derivative works of the later still copyrighted stores (and thus protected by copyright) even if they use no elements from those later copyrighted stories.
- pasbesoin 13y agoThe cynic in me wants to rush out and find a way/source to grab a copy, before they find a way to lock it up, again. (The other benefit of Mickey Mouse legislation: Yanking materials back out of the public domain.)
- davidw 13y agoI'm in favor of IP laws, including copyright, but with the idea of creating incentives for people to create. Putting Sherlock Holmes in the public domain is probably not going to have much effect on Arthur Conan-Doyle's writing output, though, so it's probably a good thing at this point.
- Houshalter 13y agoI'm not sure I understand why characters themselves are copyrighted. I get why its bad to just copy someone else's work, but if I go to the effort to write my own book about the same character, who cares? The world isn't worse off for fan fiction.
- relevate 13y agoI think it's all about branding and preventing copycats from riding off of someone else's coattails. It's the creator who did the hard work of making a particular character well-known, and it wouldn't be fair to let an unknown third party use this popularity for his/herself.
- GauntletWizard 13y agoI'd actually be perfectly fine if Characters, such as Holmes, fell under Trademark, rather than copyright. Sure, nobody could create new works starring Holmes himself, but there have been any number of Expys over the years, and truly good plots and writing would get recognized, expy or not. It would give the Holmes estate reason to promote additional stories - Trademarks are only valid while in use. They'd have to shepherd the brand, not simply leech on it. It would also have the added effect of making it finally safe to reduce copyright down to a sane time; Somewhere within a lifetime. The Mouse could be protected under trademark law, while his early adventures would be free for anyone to see. Trademark is also more open to use - A trademark cannot be used to sell, rather than not used at all as with copyright. It makes it far clearer that The Onion can portray The Mouse as getting caught in a toronto-esque crack scandal, or whatever else they wish to parody, without the ugliness of american "Fair Use" laws.
- mariusmg 13y agoSo the character "Sherlock Holmes" is public domain but (some) of the novels are still copyrighted, right ? What is that good for....authors writing new "Sherlock Holmes" novels ? What is the point in having a "character" public domain ?
- rwbt 13y agoI'm assuming one can now make movies/television/video games with those characters without paying any sort of royalty.
- ZeroMinx 13y ago[serious] Has the BBC had to pay royalties for making/showing their Sherlock series? In that case, to whom? The person who created these fictional characters died over 70 years ago.
- rwbt 13y agoI believe the Copyrights for Sherlock Holmes expired in year 2000 and in public domain since then. So I don't think BBC needed to license it from the estate, at least in the UK.
- colkassad 13y agoBoth TV shows and the movie studio entered into a licensing agreement with the Conan Doyle estate, it's all in the article.
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- AbsoluteDestiny 13y agoFor making any art containing that character. Seems like a big deal. I thought he already was public domain and that was why there were so many derivative works (movies, tv, video games etc) but I guess they all had to license the character from the Doyle estate (for US works at least).
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- RexRollman 13y agoI am glad to read this. I have been following the Free Sherlock website for some time. It can be found here: http://free-sherlock.com/ http://free-sherlock.com/
- sfrechtling 13y agoCan somebody explain why american law is relevant here? Please excuse my ignorance, but shouldn't British law supercede American law as Holmes was first published in Britain?
- mitchty 13y agoSimple, because this covers America. If Britain wants to enforce its copyrights here, well you'll have to either use force or fire up a treaty. Until then American copyright law applies to something copyrighted in America. Doesn't really enter in that it was published in Britain first.
- dragonwriter 13y ago> Can somebody explain why american law is relevant here? Because actions within the jurisdiction of the United States are governed by the U.S. law? > Please excuse my ignorance, but shouldn't British law supercede American law as Holmes was first published in Britain? No, British law doesn't govern what people can do in the United States. I thought we settled that a couple hundred years ago?
- ijk 13y agoBecause it's already public domain in Britain, and has been since 2000. Since copyright is per-country, that didn't matter for an American case. Past that, America is a big enough chunk of the English-speaking audience that its American status is a factor for major commercial projects.
- wildster 13y agoNo Shit Sherlock, it was written 126 years ago.
- jrockway 13y agoCan someone point me to a law review article that covers how characters can be copyrighted? I understand that the text of the book can be copyrighted, but characters? That seems like a stretch. How does fan fiction exist at all? Authors have the legal right to go after fans, but choose not to? In this legal climate, I highly doubt that.
- belandrew 13y agoCopyright includes rights to the work itself as well as rights to creating derivative works, such as sequels, movie adaptations, etc. This does effectively mean anything using the same characters or settings, although the characters themselves are not technically copyrighted. This is a decent review of the issues involved: http://io9.com/5933976/are-fan-fiction-and-fan-art-legal http://io9.com/5933976/are-fan-fiction-and-fan-art-legal
- chilldream 13y ago> Authors have the legal right to go after fans, but choose not to? This is actually pretty much exactly how it works. Fan fiction is generally a "derivative work" but most creators and publishers realize that there is no real incentive to go after most of it, and a serious disincentive in the form of bad PR among the exact groups of people who are already buying their stuff.
- cies 13y agoI haven't read the book myself but heard they censored the use of drugs (I understood they replaced cocaine with tabacco). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sherlock_Holmes#Use_of_drugs http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sherlock_Holmes#Use_of_drugs It makes me wonder if uncensored copies can now circulate freely.
- frobozz 13y agoThe entire Holmes canon has been in the public domain in its original country of publication for some time. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle died in 1930 (more than 70 years ago) and I don't see any evidence that he wrote anything about Mr. Holmes after 1963 (50 years ago)
- kurren 13y agoIt's really interesting how US justice is always so keen to rule for public domain for non US ip while being so defensive for US ip products (eg. Disney) - I guess it's one more face of American exceptionalism. We love you so much guys.
- ben010783 13y agoIt seems like you're confusing a judge's interpretation of a law with extensive lobbying to get a law changed. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_Term_Extension_Act http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_Term_Extension_Act