
Sherlock lives in public domain, US court rules - danso
http://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/jun/16/sherlock-public-domain-court-doyle-estate-copyright
======
seren
Fortunately, the estate appeal was rejected. If adding any new (short) story
can make a character "more rounded", it is basically a very cheap way to
extend the copyrights _ad vitam aeternam_.

~~~
vidarh
The cynic in me things that this idea is probably the reason why Disney have
been so aggressive about using their oldest characters in the last few years.
E.g. Steamboat Willy in opening sequences, and the short film before Frozen.

Even if they fail to extend the original copyrights, there are other potential
"loopholes" to making it harder to reuse these characters:

The more Disney uses variations of them, the bigger the minefield becomes in
terms of sticking to the depictions that enters/have entered public domain.
And they may also be going for making it harder to make any use of some of the
imagery without running into trademark law as well.

In this case, the author "only" had to deal with the threats and the small
minefield of avoiding character aspects revealed in the last 10 Sherlock
stories, and so presumably had a reasonably simple task. Perhaps the Arthur
Conan Doyle estate now wishes they'd pursued a more aggressive licensing
strategy aimed at creating a bigger minefield..

~~~
seren
But this ruling will create a precedent that will make it harder to justify,
that Sherlock Holmes entered the domain public and Mickey Mouse should not,
although I am pretty sure that Walt Disney's lawyers are already carefully
preparing their argument for the next few hundred years of protection
extension.

~~~
Shivetya
I am actually not for Mickey entering public domain, he is still
representative of a very active and well known company. There are certain
characters in the Disney domain that would be wholly out of place anywhere
else.

Whereas book characters from long dead authors are a whole different matter.
While I think estates should be able to protect the rights of the estate for a
period of time the fact that no new content can be created by the author
should discount extending the protection. Now interesting cases do arise where
direct descendant or designated authors do keep stories and characters
progressing, Dune and Pern come to mind.

So where the association is very strong with an active entitle I say let them
keep it, where there are degrees of separation, like book examples, then
perhaps one generation?

~~~
mattmanser
Then you don't understand why copyright was created.

It's not there to give forever and ever protection. It's there to allow you to
get some money before society, which made your product worth something in the
first place, can incorporate it into culture where it belonged in the first
place.

Disney themselves love using other people stories constantly, but no-one can
use theirs for extreme amounts of time because they've distorted the meaning
of copyright.

There's no good reason for someone else's ideas to be protected, it doesn't
benefit society at all. Copyright should be 10-15 years, not this ridiculous
century.

Apart from America as it exports the stuff, so, surprise, surprise, they've
bullied the rest of the world into making stupidly long copyrights so that
everything created in the last century is languishing in untouchable hell so a
few big brands can continue making money off things that should be public
domain.

~~~
rayiner
That may have been why copyright was created, but over time, the justification
has evolved, at least in Europe, into one based on the moral rights of the
author.

My personal opinion is that copyright should never expire. Think about it: you
can have an indefinite government granted monopoly over land, something you
didn't create, something that existed before you and will exist after you, but
you have weaker protections over something you brought to life? Something that
would not exist without you? To me, the moral case for indefinite copyright
protection is stronger than the one for indefinite land ownership.

~~~
decode
I think you're mistaken in both directions.

On the one hand, you do not have a monopoly over land in the sense of
copyright. Sure, you control the use of the particular piece of land, but if
someone else wants to copy it by reshaping their own land to have the same
topography as yours, you have no recourse. Also, if someone wants to make a
derivative work, like a map, they are free to do so. In this sense, the land
is in the public domain.

On the other hand, you already have indefinite government granted monopoly of
creative works in the sense of land ownership. You can write a novel, print
it, bind it, and put it in a drawer. As long as you just have the one copy and
don't give it to anyone else, the government will protect your right to
exclusive usage and ownership of the work. In this sense, the book is
protected property like land.

Where the equivalence falls apart is when you want to sell or transfer the
property. If you sell your land, you have no say in what the new owners do
with it. If you sell a book, you expect to be able to control what the new
owners do with it. This is why this comparison is not very useful.

------
nkurz
Wow, I think this new decision cleans up a number of loose ends left by the
district judge. It's not especially clear in the Guardian article, but this is
the Circuit Court (one layer below the Supreme Court) decision of the appeal
by the Conan Doyle Estate of a District Court decision made at the end of last
year.

The District Court decision by Ruben Castillo
([http://freesherlock.files.wordpress.com/2013/12/klinger-
orde...](http://freesherlock.files.wordpress.com/2013/12/klinger-order-on-
motion-for-summary-judgment-c.pdf)) went largely in favor of Klinger, saying
that the pre-1923 stories were public domain. But it left a lot of uncertainty
about how incidental details ("increments of expression") from the later
stories were to be treated. There's a good summary of the District decision
here: [http://tushnet.blogspot.com/2014/01/guest-post-betsy-
rosenbl...](http://tushnet.blogspot.com/2014/01/guest-post-betsy-rosenblatt-
on-case-of.html)

In addition to affirming the earlier District decision (Klinger can publish
without fear of being sued), this brand new Circuit decision by Richard Posner
seems like it clears up a lot of the uncertainty and offers much clearer
guidelines for future decisions. And it does it decisively and with
considerable flair:
[http://freesherlock.files.wordpress.com/2013/02/klinger-7th-...](http://freesherlock.files.wordpress.com/2013/02/klinger-7th-
circuit-opinion-c.pdf)

    
    
      We cannot find any basis in statute or case law for ex-   
      tending a copyright beyond its expiration. When a story 
      falls into the public domain, story elements—including 
      characters covered by the expired copyright—become fair 
      game for follow-on authors... 
    

The decision itself is worth reading, definitely clearer and more engaging
than most of the newspaper coverage.

------
aceperry
I guess it's not surprising that Sherlock Holmes couldn't pull a Mickey Mouse.
The AC Doyle estate should've greased the wheels of commerce with some major
dollars.

------
BerislavLopac
The problem with such cases is that -- as far as I'm aware (IANAL) -- concepts
like characters, inventions (e.g. hyperdrive) etc are not covered by any of
the existing laws that handle creative monopolies (i.e. what is generally
known, incorrectly, as "intellectual property"). Copyright covers the specific
fixed representations (e.g. words on paper) and not ideas and concepts, while
other laws like patents or trademarks also seem unfit here.

~~~
ben0x539
I've googled this a bunch out of curiosity before and everybody, including a
bunch of courts, seems to argue that fleshed-out fictional characters are in
fact covered by copyright even with the serial numbers filed off. IANAL
either, obviously.

I mean, you'd be drowning in published, unauthorized fanfic of Batman and
Harry Potter and whatnot otherwise.

~~~
BerislavLopac
In fact we do. E.g. 50 shades of grey started out as a fanfic of Twilight.

------
bane
Some real absolutely timeless classic stories are available in the public
domain right now. If I had more time, money and passion, I'd be the RMS of the
public domain. In my mind it's the free-est a work can possibly be.
Unencumbered by licensing or copyright (or copyleft) considerations. You like
it? Use it for whatever you want in whatever way you want.

One of my friends was looking for something to read, had an old kindle but
didn't really have any money to pay for anything. I pointed her towards these
absolute classics which kept her occupied for months, and then she passed them
down to her kids. She now has a kindle full of more books than she can
possibly read, all for free. And her children are now benefiting from this as
well. The last time we spoke, her son was enjoying romping across Mars in the
"Barsoom" series, a series of books _I_ grew up enjoying immensely. Even while
looking for these I was stunned how many freaking _awesome_ works are out
there in the PD.

(most of these have ready-to-go kindle versions)

All of the Oz books (yes, there is more than 1 as I was delighted to find out)
-
[http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/author/42](http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/author/42)

E.R. Burroughs, which gets you the Barsoom series, Tarzan and a handful of
other fantastically great adventure reads
[http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/author/48](http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/author/48)

Even better, Verne, which gets you adventure, sci-fi and more -
[http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/author/60](http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/author/60)

A huge collection of Doyle works, Sherlock is a big piece, but he wrote tons
of others.
[http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/author/69](http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/author/69)

A collection of old Science Fiction monthlies -
[http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/search/?query=astounding+sto...](http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/search/?query=astounding+stories+of+super+science)

The indomitable works by Dumas -
[http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/author/492](http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/author/492)

An entire classic bookshelf of Rudyard Kipling -
[http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/author/132](http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/author/132)

Jack London, who I grew up reading as a child and loving -
[http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/author/120](http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/author/120)

Stevenson -
[http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/author/35](http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/author/35)

And that's just the Gutenberg project. You can dive into several Library of
Congress's worth of books, magazine and other literature at archive.org, a
well so deep, it's easy to get lost and never find your way back to the same
place again. And also happens to have the best on-line e-reader ever made.
(Note: not all of these have fallen into the PD, but Archive.org treats them
like it's from a world where they are in the PD, demonstrating the power of
the idea).

[https://archive.org/details/texts](https://archive.org/details/texts)

but _does_ have an almost 3,000 item Children's library
[https://archive.org/details/iacl](https://archive.org/details/iacl), mostly
of scans of original prints which are _amazing_ on tablets.

The Harvard Classics
[https://archive.org/details/harvardclassics](https://archive.org/details/harvardclassics)

And these astonishing collections

[https://archive.org/details/comics](https://archive.org/details/comics)

[https://archive.org/details/imslp](https://archive.org/details/imslp)

[https://archive.org/details/magazine_rack](https://archive.org/details/magazine_rack)
(which includes 196 issues of OMNI magazine [https://archive.org/details/omni-
magazine](https://archive.org/details/omni-magazine) and 103 issues of Galaxy
[https://archive.org/details/galaxymagazine](https://archive.org/details/galaxymagazine),
300 issues of Starlog
[https://archive.org/details/starlogmagazine](https://archive.org/details/starlogmagazine))

And almost 1,500 scans of various Pulp Magazines
[https://archive.org/details/pulpmagazinearchive](https://archive.org/details/pulpmagazinearchive)

Several libraries' worth of Computer Magazines (11,000 issues!)
[https://archive.org/details/computermagazines](https://archive.org/details/computermagazines)

And finally
[https://archive.org/details/sciencefiction](https://archive.org/details/sciencefiction)

~~~
Spooky23
Thanks for a great post. My family will have lots of good stuff to read when
we go on vacation!

~~~
wahsd
I can't recall the exact process, but you can bookmark a certain Project
Gutenberg page on the Kindle that puts basically all of their works at your
fingertips.

May I also plug Distributed Proofreaders
([http://www.pgdp.net/](http://www.pgdp.net/)), which is a major source of
primary source documents to Project Gutenberg. It is the power of the global
community of internet citizens who digitize scanned documents that are
difficult or impossible to OCR.

To anyone looking for inspiration and creativity and innovation; that is where
you will find those stories that are obscure and hidden and have not been
rehashed ad nauseam.

~~~
shambulatron
Good plug. Joined!

------
jordigh
I find it cute that the British-born Holmes is in the public domain in the US,
but the true-blooded American Mouse is not.

~~~
TylerE
Why is this shocking? Sherlock predates Mickey by 41 years.

~~~
jordigh
No, the Case-Book of Sherlock Holmes was published in 1927. Steamboat Willie
is from 1928.

Copyright law in the US is basically built around Mickey Mouse. Sherlock
Holmes seems to barely make the cut into public domain.

~~~
TylerE
The first volume of Sherlock Holmes stories was published in 1887.

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melling
Is this only the English version? I read somewhere that translations are
derived works and hold a different status.

~~~
jvreeland
IANAL (or that experience with copyright) but, it probably depends on the
country and how it was translated. A translation of Clash of Kings to Spanish
in the US for example would be considered a derivative work. A translator
would have been hired by the publisher (or similar party) and created with
permission from the original copyright holder who would then retain a
copyright over the Spanish copy, although probably the same copyright.
Translating without the permission of the copyright holder as far as I'm aware
is against US copyright laws. I imagine it's different if you translate
something without a current copyright, a translation of Beowulf for example
may be eligible for copyright. This is just extrapolation from my limited
knowledge on the subject.

------
danesparza
I'm curious... (and I'm only being a little flippant, I promise) Does this
also mean that the new BBC series can be freely distributed on Bit torrent
without fear of copyright infringement?

~~~
TheCoelacanth
No, each new work gets its own separate copyright period. Many individual
elements of the BBC series are public domain, and as such could be used in
other works, but the work as a whole is covered by copyright.

------
kurren
of course. let's apply the same 'logic' with mickey f __ __*ng mouse, now.
please.

