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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

#61

Post by itafroma »

rplnt wrote: post #45
officemonkey wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did you know that Disney is asserting their trademark on Snow White? They believe that they're the only studio allowed to make a film of the Snow White story, even though the Snow White fairy tale is in the public domain?

They are not successful though, are they? There is a low-budget snow-white based TV series that run a year ago (Once Upon A Time). Also, it is ridiculous considering that character is way older than Disney itself and provably comes from outside US jurisdiction.

> They are not successful though, are they? There is a low-budget snow-white based TV series that run a year ago (Once Upon A Time)

Once Upon a Time is a (still active) series produced by ABC Studios, which is a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Disney-ABC Television Group, which is in turn a wholly-owned subsidiary of Disney. The show incorporates dozens of Disney franchises (or, rather, the Disney versions of classic stories) entirely because of its ownership.

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

#62

Post by [deleted] »

ZeroMinx wrote: post #46
rwbt wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm assuming one can now make movies/television/video games with those characters without paying any sort of royalty.

[serious] Has the BBC had to pay royalties for making/showing their Sherlock series? In that case, to whom? The person who created these fictional characters died over 70 years ago.

[deleted]

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

#63

Post by dougbarrett »

rplnt wrote: post #45
officemonkey wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did you know that Disney is asserting their trademark on Snow White? They believe that they're the only studio allowed to make a film of the Snow White story, even though the Snow White fairy tale is in the public domain?

They are not successful though, are they? There is a low-budget snow-white based TV series that run a year ago (Once Upon A Time). Also, it is ridiculous considering that character is way older than Disney itself and provably comes from outside US jurisdiction.

If it's the ABC "Once Upon A Time", that's Disney owned.

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

#64

Post by andrewfong »

dragonwriter wrote: post #56
andrewfong wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, this is the rationale the Supreme Court used to justify retroactive extensions of copyright. From an economic and psychological perspective though, it gets increasingly silly as copyright gets longer and longer. We know that people discount future income, and when you get to time frames of 70-90 years, the present value of any additional income is near-zero.

> Yes, this is the rationale the Supreme Court used to justify retroactive extensions of copyright. No, it isn't. Not only is the stated rationale not addressed in the key case on retroactive copyright extension -- Eldred v. Ashcroft , 537 U.S. 186 (2003) -- that decision doesn't actually justify retroactive extensions of copyright based on any kind of incentive structure. Its only discussion of incentive was in rega…

Yes and no. The majority opinion in Eldred v. Ashcroft clearly discusses retroactive effect:

"Given the consistent placement of existing copyright holders in parity with future holders, the author of a work created in the last 170 years would reasonably comprehend, as the “this” offered her, a copyright not only for the time in place when protection is gained, but also for any renewal or extension legislated during that time. Congress could rationally seek to “promote … Progress” by including in every copyright statute an express guarantee that authors would receive the benefit of any later legislative extension of the copyright term. Nothing in the Copyright Clause bars Congress from creating the same incentive by adopting the same position as a matter of unbroken practice."[1]

Stated rational by above post isn't quite the same as the point made in Eldred, but it's based on the same idea -- i.e. parity between terms for newly created works and previously created works.

[1] http://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/01-618.ZO.html

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

#65

Post by stan_rogers »

ZeroMinx wrote: post #42
morley wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you're distinction is a semantic one. pavpanchekha could have easily framed his observation as Sir Doyle "creating" aspects of Watson's character.

you're -> your Sorry.. I'm not of native English tongue myself, but this one annoys me to no end.

While we're at it, it would be "Sir Arthur" in short form, though it's really nor proper to use the honorific at all after a knight is deceased -- the knighthood is strictly a lifetime honour, and dies with the knight. In the case of people like Arthur Conan Doyle, it makes biographical sketches awkward, since he was a Knight Bachelor, not a knight of an order of chivalry, so there isn't a "real" postnominal you can use in a list of awards and decorations ("Kt" is usually used these days, but it's easily confused with "KT", indicating a Knight of the Order of the Thistle, when set in traditional small caps); one needs to either break the rules or use something like "in life he was styled...".

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

#66

Post by dragonwriter »

andrewfong wrote: post #64
dragonwriter wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Yes, this is the rationale the Supreme Court used to justify retroactive extensions of copyright. No, it isn't. Not only is the stated rationale not addressed in the key case on retroactive copyright extension -- Eldred v. Ashcroft , 537 U.S. 186 (2003) -- that decision doesn't actually justify retroactive extensions of copyright based on any kind of incentive structure. Its only discussion of incentive was in rega…

Yes and no. The majority opinion in Eldred v. Ashcroft clearly discusses retroactive effect: "Given the consistent placement of existing copyright holders in parity with future holders, the author of a work created in the last 170 years would reasonably comprehend, as the “this” offered her, a copyright not only for the time in place when protection is gained, but also for any renewal or extension legislated during t…

> Yes and no. The majority opinion in Eldred v. Ashcroft clearly discusses retroactive effect

Sure, it discusses it because that was a challenged aspect. What it doesn't do is say that the retroactive effect is justified because it creates a motivating incentive, it says that the particularly challenged retroactive extension isn't a violation of a posited quid pro quo requirement because inclusion in future extensions is justifiably viewed as part of the existing bargain based on the unbroken past history of including works created before extension in extensions.

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

#67

Post by icambron »

stan_rogers wrote: post #65
ZeroMinx wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

you're -> your Sorry.. I'm not of native English tongue myself, but this one annoys me to no end.

While we're at it, it would be "Sir Arthur" in short form, though it's really nor proper to use the honorific at all after a knight is deceased -- the knighthood is strictly a lifetime honour, and dies with the knight. In the case of people like Arthur Conan Doyle, it makes biographical sketches awkward, since he was a Knight Bachelor, not a knight of an order of chivalry, so there isn't a "real" postnominal you can…

I believe the safest and least weird thing to do is simply not call anyone by the ridiculous honorific "Sir" or generally maintain the distinction between knights of any order and the rest of us.

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

#68

Post by pbhjpbhj »

officemonkey wrote: post #39
mullingitover wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Disney holds a trademark on Mickey Mouse in perpetuity, so your nostalgia is covered. I'd be happy with a copyright system where the fee is $5 for the first year of government-protected monopoly, $10, for the second, $20 for the third, and on and on at the rate of $5*2^n for as long as they like. Note that at the fifteen-year mark, the renewal fee for another year of copyright enforcement would be over $30 million, w…

This. Whenever people talk about Mickey Mouse entering the public domain like it's the end of the world, I point to the Fleischer Studio Superman Cartoons that were made in the 1940s. Those cartoons are in the public domain and people may copy or sell them as much as they want. However, since DC Comics still holds a trademark on Superman, you can't use Superman for anything else. In fact, when I bought a VHS tape of…

>If they created a new image, the Superman trademark would have applied. //

Trademarks indicate origins of goods/services. Unless they used the trademark in a way as to convince people that the video originated with DC Comics then they're supposedly fine.

It's a notional consideration but after the lapse of a copyright the "man in the street" should be expected to be aware that the copyright has lapsed and so to be able to buy previously restricted works from any company. Images adapted from a PD work then should be allowed, provided there is no effort made to use that image in an otherwise infringing way.

Of course you can be sued for anything and DC Comics would most likely enact a very expensive lawsuit - in a sane legal system however they should probably lose, especially if they were attempting to use their trademark to prevent the release of material which would have been copyright infringing before the lapse of the copyright term.

If the estate of a creator of a work can use TM law to prevent PD works from being adapated and used then that cancels the deal made in copyright between the state and the creator whereby the works have a presumption of fully entering the public domain.

[Does anyone know of any caselaw covering situations where a major element of once copyrighted - but now PD - works is also a valid trademark?]

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

#69

Post by A1kmm »

mullingitover wrote: post #14
rwbt wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Considering how powerful Disney is, I am not hopeful that it will happen.

I've thought about this, and I kinda wonder if there's more to it than the bad ol' media cartels flexing their muscle. Doesn't the government have an interest in maximizing its revenues? If so, is revenue maximized by limiting copyright, or by expanding it?

Overall government revenue worldwide is maximised by balanced copyright - that promotes the more efficient creation of taxable creative works, and use of copyrighted works in business, by allowing reuse of public domain works, but still incentivises forward progress to further enlarge the pie of which the government gets a slice. I suspect that at the moment, balance means shortening copyright terms drastically.

Overall campaign finance revenues, however, are maximised by supporting copyright expansion, because copyright holders who already own substantial collections of copyrighted works are willing to back politicians who support their interests, but there is no equally big pot of money for politicians in favour of balancing copyright.

It is one of those cases where what is essentially legally sanctioned corruption allows for regulatory capture of the political process against the interests of the government and public.

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

#70

Post by kbenson »

icambron wrote: post #67
stan_rogers wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While we're at it, it would be "Sir Arthur" in short form, though it's really nor proper to use the honorific at all after a knight is deceased -- the knighthood is strictly a lifetime honour, and dies with the knight. In the case of people like Arthur Conan Doyle, it makes biographical sketches awkward, since he was a Knight Bachelor, not a knight of an order of chivalry, so there isn't a "real" postnominal you can…

I believe the safest and least weird thing to do is simply not call anyone by the ridiculous honorific "Sir" or generally maintain the distinction between knights of any order and the rest of us.

Do you consider doctor (MD or PhD) to be similarly ridiculous, or do you make a distinction?
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