That’s the thing, they weren’t all written before 1922.
Then the stories written after 1922 should have protection. But the ones written before 1922 and the character and all actions and behavior of the character from prior to 1922 should be in the public domain.
I hope somebody take this to court and challenges this nonsense.
Don’t forget the Sherlock who works in a hospital and is generally the bane of the hospital’s lawyers’ existence.
Right, and that one is portrayed as both having a sex life and a serious inability to form a healthy releationship with women, with one platonic exception based on intellectual attraction. If they portray Holmes as sexually active yet unable to maintain any sort of attachment to women, I think it could still be reasonably faithful to the character.
Okay, so you can feel free to make a movie of A Study in Scarlet if you want to, but it can’t contain any of the characters also contained in stories written after 1922. It would be a pretty crappy movie without Holmes and Watson, I’d say.
I find it all very confusing, especially with the whole trademark thing thrown in. Apparently it caused a minor skiffle when they did the Holmes episode on Star Trek TNG because they hadn’t realized he was still under some form of protection.
Sorry, but that’s completely contrary to the intent of copyright term expiration. The later books are still in copyright, but I’ve never heard anyone argue that you could retroactively put expired works back into copyright after they have expired by creating a new work incorporating characters from the old work.
For example, the copyright status of Peter Pan, while complicated, makes it clear that the characters of Peter, Wendy, Captain Hook, and the rest are in the public domain. Things that were added to the play, which by not being published in the US until 1928 remains in copyright, are not in the public domain. So any character attributes that Holmes and Watson possessed in the books that are in the public domain, as well as the characters themselves, are free to use.
This sounds like one of those situations where the owner of a copyright to some of an artist’s work asserts a claim on all of that artist’s work hoping that people will pay the fee rather than taking them to court to to clarify everything.
Except in England, probably part of the “complication” you were referring to, as Bill Willingham found out the hard way.
You could set up a printing press in your garage and churn out as many copies of A Study in Scarlet as you wanted, and legally sell them, since the copyright is expired. That has no impact on the question of whether the trademarks are still protected or not, though. They’re two completely separate areas of law.
Great discussion! As for myself, I think an action Holmes would be in line with the original concept. As others have said, I’ll have to see how the female situation is handled to determine my reaction. However, I am looking forward to this movie very much. From what I’ve been able to read on this, it seems as it if should be good. At least I have my hopes.
The release of The Seven Per-Cent Solution in 1976 caused a large increase in people interested in the stories. Sherlockians generally are hoping for a similar response from this film. It has been a few years since a good one has been released.
There has been talk of another effort with Sasha Cohen and Will Ferrell. The thought of that one turns my stomach.
As for gay film presentations (non-Canonical!), there has been one - The American Adventures of Surelick Holms (1971).
On the subject of copyright – the stories collected in The Case-Book of Sherlock Holmes (first printed 1927) were renewed by Conan Doyle’s children and are still in copyright in the US. I forget the status in the UK and EU of that book. I think they are all still in effect. All other stories are in the public domain.
As for trademark, Andrea Plunkett and Jonathan Clowes Ltd. have lost every single case brought against them by the estate of Arthur Conan Doyle. Their claim of trademark ownership is bogus, but they still push it whenever they can. (The US representative of the ACD literary estate is a friend of mine.) Some groups, when researching copyright, go for the easy solution rather than the right solution. I can’t remember if Plunkett, et al, caused the problem with the Star Trek episodes directly, or if it was a misunderstanding otherwise related to them. Pity because they were great episodes, and I think they wanted to do more but were scared off.
If anyone is interested in a comprehensive list of Sherlock Holmes related films, send me an e-mail. I have it as a 255 KB Excel file and would be glad to share.
Last thing – Dex, you saw Basil Rathbone? Cool! What’s the story behind that? (If you don’t mind sharing.)