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Sherlock Holmes Is in the Public Domain, American Judge Rules

artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com

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Re: Sherlock Holmes Is in the Public Domain, American Judge Rules

#4

Post by pavpanchekha »

I am fascinated by the nuance that went into this decision. The argument by the Doyle estate intrigues me: they claim that the characters themselves (as a sort of platonic form) were not fully developed until Doyle stopped writing.

For example, they would argue that in every story, Watson had once played rugby, though this fact wasn't published until a later story. Thus this aspect of Watson's character is still protected. The real meat of their argument is that the pieces that were "discovered" after 1923 are so central to Watson that there's no un-copyright-ed Watson left if those pieces are still protected. (But the judge rejected that argument.)

This seems sensible if you imagine Sir Doyle "discovering", not "inventing", Watson.

Re: Sherlock Holmes Is in the Public Domain, American Judge Rules

#5

Post by tzs »

> But now, following a legal ruling, the deerstalker-wearing detective is headed to another destination: the public domain

He wore what might have been a deerstalker in parts of two stories, and in both he was in a setting where a deerstalker would have been a normal hat to wear. Most of the time in most of the stories he was not in such a setting, and would have been wearing something else. It was important in his line of work to blend in, and you don't blend in by committing a fashion faux pas.

Re: Sherlock Holmes Is in the Public Domain, American Judge Rules

#7

Post by dragonwriter »

pavpanchekha wrote: post #4

I am fascinated by the nuance that went into this decision. The argument by the Doyle estate intrigues me: they claim that the characters themselves (as a sort of platonic form) were not fully developed until Doyle stopped writing. For example, they would argue that in every story, Watson had once played rugby, though this fact wasn't published until a later story. Thus this aspect of Watson's character is still prot…

> This seems sensible if you imagine Sir Doyle "discovering", not "inventing", Watson.

If you imagine that, then you would be imagining Watson right out of the scope of copyright, which covers creations, not discoveries.

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