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Sherlock Holmes Is in the Public Domain, American Judge Rules
11–20 of 120 posts
Re: Sherlock Holmes Is in the Public Domain, American Judge Rules
#12[deleted]
You can still charge for a work that is in the public domain.
Re: Sherlock Holmes Is in the Public Domain, American Judge Rules
#13> 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 l…
In the Jeremy Brett TV series, an unusually faithful adaptation, Holmes is most commonly wearing a top hat.
Re: Sherlock Holmes Is in the Public Domain, American Judge Rules
#14Looking forward to seeing Mickey Mouse in the public domain in a few years?
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?
Re: Sherlock Holmes Is in the Public Domain, American Judge Rules
#15Pardon my ignorance, but shouldn't it be a "duh" that the copyright already expired?
Re: Sherlock Holmes Is in the Public Domain, American Judge Rules
#16Looking forward to seeing Mickey Mouse in the public domain in a few years?
I'm guessing we'll be seeing another one of these before then: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_Term_Extension_Act
Is there a sensible way to extend copyright on "active" IP that is still being used in new content, while allowing copyright to expire on "dormant" IP that has been left untouched for years?
I don't think it's unreasonable for Disney to still hold copyright on Mickey Mouse (that might be the nostalgia talking), but there are plenty of creations from much more recent times that have long overstayed their welcome in the copyright protected realm.
Re: Sherlock Holmes Is in the Public Domain, American Judge Rules
#17I 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.
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.
Re: Sherlock Holmes Is in the Public Domain, American Judge Rules
#18Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm guessing we'll be seeing another one of these before then: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_Term_Extension_Act
Is there a sensible way to extend copyright on "active" IP that is still being used in new content, while allowing copyright to expire on "dormant" IP that has been left untouched for years? I don't think it's unreasonable for Disney to still hold copyright on Mickey Mouse (that might be the nostalgia talking), but there are plenty of creations from much more recent times that have long overstayed their welcome in th…
One way is to go back to the old US system, whereby you had to actively renew copyrights, and it costs enough that only active authors or publishers will do so. In reality, it was pretty messy, and there's a lot of arguing about whether a magazine copyright that wasn't renewed causes a story published in multiple places to have a lapsed copyright, etc etc.
It was also extremely painful to search for renewals until all of the renewal records were digitized by the Project Gutenberg Distributed Proofreaders. Now it's just moderately painful, because you have to be alert for variations in titles and author names.
Re: Sherlock Holmes Is in the Public Domain, American Judge Rules
#19Earlier quoted context omitted.
> 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.
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.
No, the whole point was the distinction between "discovering" and "inventing", a distinction which would not exist if "discovering" was replaced with "creating".
Re: Sherlock Holmes Is in the Public Domain, American Judge Rules
#20The cynic in me wants to rush out and find a way/source to grab a copy, before they find a way to lock it up, again. (The other benefit of Mickey Mouse legislation: Yanking materials back out of the public domain.)