Sherlock Holmes will finally escape copyright this weekend
theverge.com
theverge.com
Netflix was about to take them to court over Enola Holmes, but all parties eventually settled and the suit was dropped.
Likely the Conan Doyle estate realized their final copyrights were about to be up and it wasn't worth the legal battle they would likely lose because "having emotions" is incredibly vague.
Which means Holmes believed in some really batshit ideas. But since the world of Holmes is defined by Conan Doyle, shit like phrenology was real in that world.
Like he could determine cultivars of tobacco from looking at and feeling the ash. And other people never pick up on things that even the reader could. But Holmes does. And then you feel smart, because you even beat Holmes to the punch.
My wife has been watching Bones (again) and I've noticed this a lot there too. It was an episode where the victim was a nine-year-old child. They "digitally reconstructed" the child's appearance and couldn't find a match, but then noticed the hair was dyed, the teeth were veneered, etc. And it's obvious, the child was on the pageant circuit. But they didn't put it together until the answer was given to them. Later on, same thing with a murder weapon. They assumed it was a steel-toe boot, but it's pageant contestants, tap shoes are also available. Etc. etc. And yes, tap shoes were used in the murder.
And there's two reasons for this. This is how smart the writers are. They honestly think this takes significant deductive ability. And making the characters figure it out faster would be implausible. Or. They want the viewers/readers to feel smart. And one way to do that is to make them able to figure out the pieces before the characters. Characters who are the smartest because we're told they're the smartest.
It falls apart due to the sheer probability of the events involved. However, the stories are almost always entertaining, despite that.
i.e. This story: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Red-Headed_League
Summary; Man hired to copy books for a large pay. Lots of things don't add up at all. Turns out, it was a long con to use his shop space (he was gone while copying books) to tunnel into a bank across the street. How Sherlock Holmes found this out is completely improbable. For some reason though, I just love watching all the clues fall together. They're also relatively short stories.
I really like stories like the one you describe too though. I think I just like mystery genre in general and I'm not super picky, haha.
I think almost all stories work like this due to the nature of how you structure a story:
- Introduction - characters and concepts are introduced
- Middle - anything can happen and usually some important new characters and concepts are added
- Build-up - all the pieces are assembled and are being being put together, tension increases
- Climax - the puzzle is completed and shown to the reader/viewer
- Conclusion - payoff for the characters, they lived happily ever after
Detective novels often try to give the reader the opportunity to put the pieces together before the characters do. Other stories can give you a similar pay off though.
Bones is fine television. Sherlock Holmes is a fine read. I have the collected works in two volumes.
But I do notice a tendency among people to use fiction as evidence of reality. So it's good to remind myself that characters are reflections of the author, not of reality.
I think a healthy blend of "fiction for reality" is best. Too little makes life boring, too much makes it unrealistic.
Or they think the characters wouldn't be familiar enough with that topic to easily hit the solution.
Sherlock Bones, Dog Detective?
Ask pretty much any AI model, it still is.
So, the rules of copyright are conceptually very simple:
- Authors own a copyright over their work for a limited amount of time, then it is escheated to the public domain. While a work is under copyright, you need to get permission to copy it.
- You can't copyright ideas - that requires owning a patent, which has a far higher bar[0] to clear in order to get. You only get copyright over expressions of ideas - at a minimum some combination of uncopyrightables that itself can be considered to have a "thin copyright".
- Works that are "based on" another work are called derivative works. If a work is under copyright, you also need permission to make derivative works. If you got permission, then the new work gets its own separate copyright owned by the new artist.
Now, you would assume that whatever is in the public domain is public domain, right? Well, only sort of. Because derivative works get a fresh shiny new copyright, that casts a shadow on the public domain. So I can publish the original text of Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, but that doesn't mean that I can perform West Side Story just because it's a derivative of Shakespeare. But at the same time Jerome Robbins can't sue me for performing Shakespeare. The exact shape of a derivative's copyright is the amount of creativity added, and no more.
Therefore, I can still make my own twist on Shakespeare. But I have to be careful. If I decide "hey let's make our own 1950s New York gang warfare take on Romeo and Juliet", then I'm getting closer to just ripping off West Side Story. In fact, there's even a term-of-art for the minimum quanta of copyright: "thin copyright", which is applied to creative combinations of uncopyrightable elements.
Sherlock Holmes is a series of detective stories published as serial fiction[1]. Notably, the series was ended by the creator killing off Sherlock[2], and then brought back about a decade later. This is known by Sherlock fans as "The Great Hiatus"; and after Sherlock was brought back the author started writing him with a lot more emotion.
Let's go forward about one life plus 70 years ahead of time. You're a descendant of Arthur Conan Doyle and your gravy train is about to end, because people can just use Sherlock Holmes and not pay you anymore. Except that only part of the franchise is in the public domain. Specifically the part before the Great Hiatus. And afterwards, Sherlock is arguably a different character. So obviously, if someone makes a Sherlock Holmes adaptation where he acts like post-Hiatus Sherlock, then clearly it's infringing the copyrighted stories!
And if it weren't for those meddling kids, the estate of Arthur Conan Doyle would have gotten away with it, too. Actually, I'm kinda toning down the original argument. They thought that they could recopyright all of Sherlock Holmes by just owning one of the stories with him in it, which is not how copyright works. "Only copyrighted Sherlock is allowed to emote" was their second argument, which they abandoned when settling with Netflix.
It just occurred to me: next year, Mickey Mouse is public domain. I REPEAT: THERE IS ONLY ONE YEAR UNTIL THE COPYRIGHT ON STEAMBOAT WILLIE EXPIRES. So we're going to see all sorts of litigative fireworks as Disney tries to hold onto that cartoon mouse for dear life.
[0] Copyright is automatic, patents require a filing fee. Please stop laughing.
[1] Specifically, as part of a larger magazine. Victorian Brits subscribed to magazines to read Sherlock Holmes in the same way that Japanese teenagers subscribe to Shonen Jump today to read One Piece.
[2] Which was just as controversial and shocking as, say, a manga ending its run in a magazine today. Sherlock Holmes is basically the ur-fandom that all other fandoms were cloned from.
After Steamboat Willie is out of copyright, anyone will be able to distribute copies of it. If distributors use the mouse image in a way that confuses consumers into thinking their copies came from Disney, however, then they may infringe Disney’s trademark.
EDIT: Just in case I can't directly link TESS, the trademark serial is #97285747
For example, states have "right of publicity" laws, but you cannot use them to overturn, say, the copyright interest that a paparazzi has in an unauthorized photo of you. Yes, there are literally court cases in which people have been photographed by paparazzi, reused the photo that the paparazzi took, and then were sued for doing so. Celebrities will counter-argue right of publicity, but federal copyright preemption dissolves those claims[0].
Furthermore, trademark law only specifically applies to source-identifying contexts. And the standard for confusing trademarks is lower than the standard for derivative works in copyright. A year from now when Mickey Mouse hits public domain, if I want to just use him in a book, that's not a trademark violation. If I want to put him on the cover, then that's a trademark violation - but only if the specific way I drew him looks like the trademarked Disney logo. If I were to draw, say, a hyper-detailed portrait painting of the mouse and put that on the cover, that would be obviously not identifying Disney as the source of the work and thus not a trademark violation.
Keep in mind: this is already happening with Winnie the Pooh. There's an indie filmmaker who is making an unlicensed horror movie where the cartoon bear is a murderer. Nevertheless, he has Winnie the Pooh in the title. Nobody is going to confuse this for a licensed Disney film, however, because the cartoon bear is a murderer.
[0] Yes, this also implies that the rights of artists trump the right of privacy in the US, at least when no other crimes are committed. In, say, France, this is the opposite: public photography requires permission from every person in the photograph, so photographing large crowds is about as legally risky as training an AI to draw with copyrighted images in the US.
In the most of the world. In certain jurisdictions, public domain actually means you have to pay the state instead: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paying_public_domain
This is the absolute dumbest idea I could have imagined. Like, this is the sort of thing you'd make as an argumentum ad absurdum against copyright maximalism. You literally cannot legally create new works without an unpaid public domain backing them.
...That being said, some kind of state-run licensing scheme could fix some of the bigger problems with long copyright terms. i.e. maybe you only get 20 years of fully exclusive licensing, and then the rest of your life+70 term is compulsory licensing royalties from the state. But I doubt you'd ever see that given how the entire international copyright system is basically non-negotiable nowadays.
But you'll have to wait another year for Pinetop's Boogie Woogie by Clarence Smith (who died before the 1929 stock market crash).
In all seriousness, the first one is considered the first Rock n Roll song by some scholars. (you'll have to go archive.org to get the 1927 recording - youtube only has later ones - https://archive.org/details/78_honky-tonk-train-blues_meade-... )
Of those, I particularly like Neil Gaiman's The Case of Death and Honey.
Wouldn’t that let them block all new material made with those characters?
(Asking for a friend)
Here is where it gets tricky: Disney also holds trademarks on its characters, including the “Steamboat Willie” version of Mickey Mouse, and trademarks never expire as long as companies keep submitting the proper paperwork. A copyright covers a specific creation (unauthorized copying), but trademarks are designed to protect against consumer confusion — to provide consumers assurance about the source and quality of a creation.
Boiled down, any public domain use of the original Mickey cannot be perceived as coming from Disney, Ms. Ginsburg explained.
Source: https://web.archive.org/web/20221227170631/https://www.nytim...
I think its only blows my mind because of how hard Disney protects against that sort of thing. I guess they just can't fight it anymore tho.
It might work for Disney because they have real products and can use Mickey to brand them. Even that won't stop someone from making Steamboat Willy 2. But it might block someone from making MickeyLand Amusement park.
So if Holmes is trademarked I can’t make “Evil Sherlock Holmes Supervillian Movie” but I could write a story wherein he is his usual self.
I believe a trademark just prevents you from releasing a new Sherlock narrative that misleads the public that it's a legitimate story from the original collection.
I wonder which name reprints will use now.
This variation also appears in the Ace Attorney games[0].
> J M Barrie’s gift of the rights to Peter Pan has provided a significant source of income to Great Ormond Street Hospital
> The copyright first expired in the UK (and the rest of Europe) in 1987, 50 years after Barrie’s death.
> However, former Prime Minister Lord Callaghan successfully proposed an amendment to the Copyright Designs and Patents Act (CDPA) of 1988, giving Great Ormond Street Hospital the unique right to royalties from stage performances of Peter Pan (and any adaptation of the play) as well as from publications, audio books, ebooks,radio broadcasts and films of the story of Peter Pan, in perpetuity.
I think this means that the adaptions you are referring to haven't been published in the UK.
For those outside the UK and unaware GOSH if the most famous and most highly regarded children hospital in the UK. The NHS here get much criticism at times but the prevision for children is world class with a network of incredible children's hospitals. Having been in the situation where my child has been under the care of one of the children's hospitals, they are incredible.
https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1988/48/part/VII/crossh...
"Provisions for the benefit of Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children.
The provisions of Schedule 6 have effect for conferring on Children's Charity for the benefit of Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children a right to a royalty in respect of the public performance, commercial publication communication to the public of the play “Peter Pan” by Sir James Matthew Barrie, or of any adaptation of that work, notwithstanding that copyright in the work expired on 31st December 1987."
GOSH can of course maintain a moral right as intended inheritor of the rights to approve disprove or derivative works, but as the copyright has expired I'm not sure if they have many legal rights.
(Not a Lawyer, etc. etc.)
(Also not a lawyer)
Or you know, they were and paid royalties to the hospital. That is also an option.
See https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries%27_copyrig...
Spider-Man is owned by Marvel, which is owned by Disney.
Sony has an exclusive license to the film rights which they will eventually lose and cede back to Disney.
Not if they keep making a reboot and two sequels every few years (contract is one film every 5 years, AFAIK)
Disney can keep using him as a trademarked corporate logo, that's all they really need.
That is funny, because I think most Germans born in the 80ies to mid 90ies would disagree. We got a daring adventurer and a hard-boiled detective. I don't think it was content specifically produced by the German publisher for the German market, but it is possible, that there was more focus on that content opposed to "classic mickey".
Edit: I looked it up: It looks like the detective stories were English, but first compiled for Denmark, whereas the adventurer stories were from the Italian publication "Topolino".
I was passionate about PK (paperinik or super donald duck), but that is not a thing in north america!
He is called Phantomias in Germany.
What about something like Mario? Will it eventually go in public domain as well?
https://disneynow.com/all-shows/disney-junior?group=kidsafe&...
In general, yes, both use life+70, but different rules apply to works before that was settled.
The US thereafter had no works enter the public domain until 1998, with the oldest works that were still covered at the '76 Act's date of effectiveness (those from 1922) having finally expired 20 years later (copyrights always run through the end of the calendar year they expire in).
Later that year, Congress tacked another 20 years onto all future and still-active existing copyrights with the Copyright Term Extension Act, so the public domain "paused" again until 2019, when works from 1923 entered the public domain. There have been no more extensions, so the following years have continued moving forward with successive years' works losing copyright protection. In 2023 the relevant year will be 1927.
The final Holmes stories at issue here are from 1927, and so will be public-domain on January 1. It will be quite some time before anything under the "life of the author" regime in the US will fall into the public domain: authors who published works and then also died in 1978 would have the soonest expiration, in 2049.
Also, I wouldn't be surprised if the expiration pause triggered by the 1976 act winds up being longer and more intolerable than the Berne or EUCD/SBCTEA[0] pauses. There's a lot of 1978 artists still alive today, after all. And of course, if anyone ever figures out aging reversal and functional immortality, then we also get perpetual copyright. (Who the fuck thought life terms were a good idea?)
[0] More derisively known as the Mickey Mouse Protection Act