Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, who died in 1930, created Sherlock Holmes in the 1800s, however, the US Copyright Law states that works published before 1923 are in the public domain. Therefore, only the last ten Sherlock Holmes works are copyright protected, since they were published between 1923 and 1927.
The initial case was heard at the US District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, when Leslie Klinger decided to sue after the Doyle Estate threatened to stop the distribution of his anthology “In the Company of Sherlock Holmes” on Amazon, Barnes & Noble and similar retailers, considering that the work was unlicensed. For this reason, the publisher Pegasus Books decided not to publish the work.
Klinger previously edited other books about the detective, and the licensing fees were paid, but this time he refused to pay another fee for the sequel.
The Doyle Estate claimed that the copyright for the remaining ten stories was not due to expire until 2022 and that the stories contained significant character developments from the earlier works and that any representation of Holmes would constitute infringement of the entire collection. Those claims were rejected.
Richard Posner, Judge of the US Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, said that “the defendant’s proposed rule would also encourage authors to continue to write stories involving old characters in an effort to prolong copyright protection, rather than encouraging them to create stories with entirely new characters […]the effect would be to discourage creativity”.
Now authors can represent Sherlock Holmes characters without paying license fees or receiving permission from the right owners.
The Doyle Estate has not made any decision to appeal this ruling.
Written by: Alejandra Rosero.
Source:
http://www.worldipreview.com/news/court-confirms-sherlock-holmes-is-in-public-domain-6810
http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/06/16/us-sherlockholmes-lawsuit-idUSKBN0ER2BP20140616
http://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/jun/16/sherlock-public-domain-court-doyle-estate-copyright
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