I should also point out that rights attached to characters can be sliced-and-diced even further. A copyright holder may give Robin’s Media the right to produce a Nero Wolfe movie but deny the company the right to produce a TV series. You may argue that there’s not much difference between a movie and a TV series, but if that’s the way the copyright owner wants to play it, that’s how it’s going to be.
All copyright is really about is the right for the creator of a work to profit from his creation. Some creators are perfectly OK with your using their stuff under certain conditions, which is the basis for the Creative Commons/Copyleft movement. Others will sic their lawyers on you if you so much as use their stuff as a desktop wallpaper on your own computer. Ultimately, it’s their right to decide how their creations will be used.
Just a note that if you use Nero Wolfe (or Superman or Mickey Mouse), it’s covered by copyright as a “derivative work.”
Note that doesn’t prevent you from referring to any of these characters in your story. You just can write anything where they are the protagonist (you might get away with a cameo, but most authors avoid problems by not actually saying the name of the character – e.g., “Look at that guy in the blue and red suit flying around the city!”)
Trying to sort out all the details of the OP would make a good exam in a copyright course. Heck, just being able to list all of them would get you a good grade.
To start with, the notion of when copyright ends is dead wrong. Our current copyright laws apply only to works created or published in the time period these laws have been in effect. They don’t apply to a 1934 work. For that you have to go to a chart and see what’s applicable. Since all of Wolfe was published with notice and its copyright renewed, Fer de Lance is under copyright for 95 years, or until 2029. (Nothing has a period of 75 years.)
Legally, you’re screwed. Or, more realistically, you’re totally subject to the whims and mercies of the Stout estate. Some authors allow, even encourage, fan fiction. Others hate it. I have no idea how to the Stout estate feels about the matter. It exists. If that’s all you want to do, then you’re probably safe. Probably. They legally can issue a takedown order. You cannot change money for a new Nero Wolfe book because there you’re trampling on the lawyers’ toes and that never gets you anywhere.
Fanfiction avoids the whole issue of public domain. What happens if you want to make money? Public domain is the right to reissue a work in the same form without requesting permission or paying royalties. It may or may not allow you to move the work into a different form: a novel into a movie or radio show or comic book. That gets tangled up with a variety of contracts and licenses. At some point it all becomes legal. You can do anything you want with Huckleberry Finn - reprint it, make it into a movie, add vampires - because the Finn character lies entirely in the public domain. You cannot do so to Sherlock Holmes, because the last stories are still under copyright. The Holmes case is legendary in its complexity, as this New York Times article discusses.
That’s the big point. There are blanket rules but you need to individually research every title and character to see what applies. That’s why the easiest answer to “can I do this?” is always “no.”
Oh, so the courts have extended copyright EVEN FURTHER. C’mon, 70 years after he’s dead? HE’S not profiting from his copyright, his great grandchildren are. Jeebus. I’ll just write a parody. And it sure won’t be respectful … not that it ever would have been. I lurves me some Nero Wolfe, but he’s a goldmine for comedy.
In addition, character names can be trademarked. I’ve seen trademark notices on lots of Star Trek character names. I don’t know if the heirs trademarked Nero and Archie, but given the TV series it is possible.
Negro Wolf, America’s biggest, blackest detective was not happy that fine spring morning, possibly because of the ad I had placed in Match.com on his behalf, which had resulted in a deluge of emails from “big, beautiful black women” seeking to “share some time with him in his enormous beds of exotic orchids.”
I do not know what the circumstances of our next case will be, Hawk," he told me, “but I do know who the murderer will turn out to be … YOU! I will see to it!”
“I could have included your address and phone number you know,” I pointed out. “Put a take a number thing out in the hall and I’d have all your free time covered.” I cast a sly glance in Wolfe’s direction, to see if the needle was working, but his head was buried behind him monitor, and his posture, as usual, gave away nothing. I was feeling a little chafed at having to fill out orchid germination reports. My most recent trip to Boston to work with Spender had resulted in me and him pretty much wiping out half of the north shore mob in an hour-long gunfight in Fanueil Hall. Filling out plant germination records seemed a bit of a letdown, and so I had to puncture Wolf’s balloon a bit just to keep my spirits up.
I seem to recall a sequel to GWTW being authorized a few years back because the copyright on the original was about to expire, and the estate/owners wanted to get their version in print before any hacks cluttered the market with theirs. Did the legal situation change after that… or am I thinking of Casablanca?
Wait, are you just noticing? It’s been author’s life + 50 years since January 1, 1978 and author’s life + 70 years since 1998. That’s right. Nothing’s changed for 15 years and Fer-de-Lance would still be under copyright even if the earlier law had remained unchanged. I assume 35 years is a good proportion of your entire adult life, making its copyright status the same for all of your cognitive years. So why the surprise?
Scarlett (1991) by Alexandra Ripley and Rhett Butler’s People (2007) by Donald McCaig were authorized by the Mitchell estate.
There was an unauthorized book, The Wind Done Gone (2001) by Alice Randall, which the Mitchell estate tried to stop. But the publishers successfully argued it was protected as a parody of the original novel (it retold the story of Gone With the Wind from the viewpoint of a slave).
Other unauthorized sequels have been written but these were straight up sequels and the Mitchell estate was able to stop their publication in the United States.
Why shouldn’t they? That is to say, if an author or artist wishes to leave the stewardship and proceeds of his work to his heirs, why should he not be able to do so, just as, say, a captain of industry can leave his?
I had a vague memory that copyright extended to 75 years nowadays. I thought that was ridiculous. Naturally, I think life plus 70 years is even more ridiculous. As for why, I dunno … I’m sorry my cognitive processes do not meet with your approval. If it’s ANY consolation, there are many whose approval my cognitive processes do not meet.
Ah, in both cases the grandkids ought to do some working for a living. Let em have every advantage in education, good contacts, but make em do something other than live off grandpa’s (or to be non sexist, grandma’s) money.
I just saw a pile of LR Hubbards 1930’s SciFi/Adventure novels on sale at a local discount joint-they are paperback copies issues by an outfit called “Galaxy” press (Hollywood Ca). After 100 pages of the novel(I bought a copy of “The Great Secret”)-there is the usual slavish “biography” of the LRH. These were originally priced at $9.95/copy-so I guess $1.50 means that they were not hot sellers.
at any rate, I can join the Galaxy book club-for 9.95/month.. I can get a complete set of LRH's pulp novels! Or would I be inviting the CO into my life? Can’t risk getting some bat thetans here!
