Sherlock Holmes and the Copyright Tangle

spagiola passes along a New York Times piece on the copyright travails of Sherlock Holmes. "At his age [123 years], Holmes would logically seem to have entered the public domain. But not only is the character still under copyright in the United States, for nearly 80 years he has also been caught in a web of ownership issues so tangled that Professor Moriarty wouldn't have wished them upon him."

Comments

The copyright cash cow

[Brian Boitano]

Basically, nobody wants to give up rights to it because they can make money from it.

Re:The copyright cash cow

[Tim C]

"Elementary" is equivalent to "basic"; you'd be wanting "elementarily", though I appreciate it obfuscates the joke slightly.

Re:The copyright cash cow

[timmarhy]

if you can milk something infinately, it removes all incentive to create new creative works, completely undermining the whole arguement for copyright in the first place. how does this simple fact fail with law makers?

Re:The copyright cash cow

[Anonymous Coward]

It doesn't fail with them. They just don't care. They get paid to write more long-lasting, restrictive copyright laws, so they do it. All those "for the good of culture" arguments are just smokes and mirrors, so it's less obvious.

Re:The copyright cash cow

[interkin3tic]

if you can milk something infinately, it removes all incentive to create new creative works, completely undermining the whole arguement for copyright in the first place.

I'd point out that Sir Arthur Conan Doyle is also very dead, which probably prevents him from making new creative works more than a lack of financial incentive, but I agree with you in principle.

Re:The copyright cash cow

[Wildclaw]

Yup. In fact, copyright in itself is self defeating as any increase in actual information produced is offset by the loss of actual copies of said information due to higher copying costs.

To be fair, that is not 100% true. If the extra information produced is of higher quality it can still be worth it. But that is pretty much the only situation where copyright can be motivated. However, in that case, I don't really see any evidence for copyright beyond 5 years, as quality information should have no problem earning back its money in that amount of time. And allowing non-quality information to profit from copyright laws is inefficient.

Re:The copyright cash cow

[westlake]

if you can milk something infinately, it removes all incentive to create new creative works

Sherlock Holmes is a piss-poor example for this argument.

The character is arguably the most famous and instantly recognizable in all English literature.

There have been hundreds if not thousands of new Holmes stories published. Countless books, films, stage, radio and tv productions. In each generation, a new actor becomes the definitive Sherlock Holmes.

There have puppet shows, comics, cartoons, graphic novels - Dover even publishes a set of paper dolls.

The modern mystery and detective story begins with Holmes. Doyle introduced three important and suggestive ideas:

1 Holmes is a private detective, in the modern meaning of the word.He is almost never reduced to solving a problem with a fist or a gun, I don't think of how fresh and novel that was.

2 Doyle separated the narrator and the detective.

Watson can tell the story in the first person without cheating the reader.

He can ask the questions the reader wants answered. He can be an Archie Goodwin or a Nora Charles.

2 Holmes is firmly anchored in a particular time and place - a time and place he instantly invokes.

Re:The copyright cash cow

[MrNaz]

Disney would beg to differ.

Re:The copyright cash cow

[Grimbleton]

Or Tupac.

Re:The copyright cash cow

[oh2]

As long as politics in the US is decided by who has the largest wallet things like that will be the logical conclusion.

Disney

[BlackHawk-666]

You can blame Disney and their rodent for the current state of copyright laws. Don't think that when copyright period for Mickey once again draws to a close there won't be a large bundle of cash handed out to the nearest person able to extend the period another 20-50 years.

Re:Disney

[Anonymous Coward]

As much as the current state of the copyright law and the public domain pisses me off, I can't help but laugh at the rationale that was presented when they extended copyright from life of the author plus 50 years to plus 70 years. They really did argue that it was necessary as an incentive for artists to produce—it wouldn't be worth it to do the work if their heirs couldn't benefit from the work that long.

So, a bunch of lobbyists explained, with straight faces, to some congresspeople—who then went on to repeat the explanation in session, also with straight faces—that an author would actually sit around and say, "Let's see, if I finish this novel and it's successful, the revenue will feed my kids for the rest of my life, plus 50 years after I'm dead. Hmm. Nope, for the work I'd have to put in, I'm gonna need the rest of my natural life plus at least 60 years or so, ideally 70. To hell with this 50-year bullshit, I'm going drinking."

Re:Disney

[sootman]

Which makes Disney the worst kind of hypocrite, since they've built their empire on public domain works, from Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937) and Pinocchio (1940) to The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1996) and Rapunzel (later this year) and many others in between. Over 70 years of taking from the public domain and what have they given back? NOTHING. Fuckers.

What a crock

[davmoo]

The fact that none of the current living "heirs" is a direct descendant of the author is further proof of how screwed up our system is.

But I can understand why they fight so hard. If they didn't have Holmes, they'd have to all get real jobs and work for a living.

Re:What a crock

[LordLucless]

Huh? What's so special about an author, that they get life insurance for free? Everyone else has to pay for that sort of guarantee for our dependants. Copyright should be a fixed term, regardless of the mortal status of the author.

Re:What a crock

[lordholm]

I am not defending it, I am just simply saying that those reasons are basically the only ones that hold at all for having copyright extended after the death of an author. I do agree with you, but if you want to reform the copyright system you need to come up with ideas that can gain acceptance from more than the slashdot readers. Saying 25 years with the motivation that it covers the children until they start working is pragmatic in the sense that it would be possible to accept it, even for the copyright mafia, since there are virtually no reasons that they can come up with for extending it. 25 years is also a lot less than 50/70 years as in the EU, and 90? as in the US.

Re:What a crock

[Toonol]

How about: Copyright lasts 30 years.

Why all this 'x after death, or y if z' nonsense? The heirs receive the benefit of the money the creator makes from the work, after all.

Re:What a crock

[h4rm0ny]

Huh? What's so special about an author, that they get life insurance for free? Everyone else has to pay for that sort of guarantee for our dependants.

You get paid in real time. Do a month's work, get a month's pay, set some aside for life insurance or pension. An author is more like a long-term investor. They put in a lot of work up front and their rewards come in over years, sometimes decades. If you write a novel, die, and then a year later it gets its second larger print run after good reviews / word of mouth, or it gets bought for turning into a film, or whatever, your widow would get nothing to represent the value of the work. That's why copyright projects forwards in time, because the earnings project forward in time. What, if your partner invests all their hours and money into long-term stocks, you don't get the earnings back from that because they died?

Also, it reduces the incentive for movie producers to kill you so they can use your work for free. ;)

Re:What a crock

[LordLucless]

If you write a novel, die, and then a year later it gets its second larger print run after good reviews / word of mouth, or it gets bought for turning into a film, or whatever, your widow would get nothing to represent the value of the work.

Huh? Of course she does. I didn't say copyrights should expire on death - I said they should extend a fixed term. All other things being equal, your widow would get exactly what she would of got from that work had you lived out the entire term.

Re:What a crock

[foobsr]

How about: lifetime of spouse or until the youngest child is 25 years, whichever is greater.

Pff, they will ensure that offspring is created from a sperm bank each quarter of a century.

CC.

Re:What a crock

[Wildclaw]

An author is more like a long-term investor.

In that case, they should either work for a salary for a book investment company or run their own company (which again needs investment of some kind). That is how business usually works. Not being able to collect a steady salary is something any upstart entrepreneur without backing has to deal with. There is nothing special about authors there.

They put in a lot of work up front and their rewards come in over years, sometimes decades

You will find very few cases were you don't have have an 80-20 distribution with the 80% being in the first 5 years. Small enough percentage that we shouldn't worry about that, just like we don't worry about the companies who go under because they fail to make a profit in the first five years.

What, if your partner invests all their hours and money into long-term stocks, you don't get the earnings back from that because they died?

What if your partner dies after having spent all their money into their startup company? Shit happens. That is why we have social safety nets.

Re:What a crock

[TheLink]

> those reasons are basically the only ones that hold at all for having copyright extended after the death of an author

There's another reason: if copyrights ended on the death of an author, authors might somehow end up having lower lifespans than average.

Having it author's death + 25 at least makes them wait a bit longer...

Fixed term from creation date is better of course - decouples the death from the copyright.

Re:What a crock

[stdarg]

Out of curiosity, do you see a difference between copyright and shares in a company?

The shares of a company that no longer provides anything of interest are worthless. The copyright of a story or character that nobody has interest in is worthless.

The owner of the shares doesn't have to do any work, just take the proceeds of the work others do. The shares only exist to make the ownership clear. Copyright holders also don't have to do any work, just take the proceeds of the work others do (via licensing etc... there's no pay in simply holding onto a copyright).

The only real difference is that ownership of shares doesn't expire.

Time to revert back to the 1790-1922 laws

[mykos]

If IP owners are going to be such absolute children about this, maybe we should revert back to the old law.

It was once legally agreed upon that 14+14 years was an adequate amount of time to commercially exploit your copyright. With today's digital distribution and rapid-fire publishing houses, does it really need to be a HUNDRED years?

Re:Time to revert back to the 1790-1922 laws

[jecblackpepper]

Of course the copyright holders want a long copyright not so much so that they can earn money from older works, but to prevent them becoming public domain and diluting the market for new works that they produce. If copyright were 25 years, then all the films, books, music and TV from before 1985 would be available for everyone. I would think that quite a lot of people would be completely happy to spend their leisure time with just that material - it is still within cultural relevance for most people; whereas century old material is of much less cultural relevance, except for the really great classics.

Re:Time to revert back to the 1790-1922 laws

[Jason Levine]

My point was that copyright holders keep saying they need these long copyrights as incentives to create new works. However, how much incentive does a 50 year old work give you if it brings in only pocket change every year? If a study proved that a vast majority of works don't bring in a significant amount of money after X years, then copyright holders' main argument for long copyrights would evaporate. For that very reason, I don't expect that they would cooperate with such a study.

As a side note, if such a study were performed, I wonder whether Hollywood Accounting would work against the movie studios in the study. How much did Lord of the Rings make? Oh, it operated at a loss (thanks to Hollywood Accounting) and continues to do so with no signs of "profit" on the horizon? Well, then, I guess you won't mind simply writing off the loss and releasing it to the Public Domain?

Re:Time to revert back to the 1790-1922 laws

[AthanasiusKircher]

Agreed. There was nothing wrong with this old law. Fourteen years is often plenty; if the author still cares after 14, he/she can renew it for another 14.

Almost 30 years is more than enough. It allows for the occasional work that might take a few years to achieve popularity. It's about half of most people's adult lifespan.

Then the work reverts to the public domain. Very few works take decades to become popular. And if for some reason the work does become popular 30 years after it was published, the author can always create something new and trade on his/her newly-found fame.

Copyright should not be the default status of a work. The default status should be public domain, with a "limited time" option available for creators (and distributors) to recoup their expenses in their initial public offering of their creation.

Note that the Constitution wants to promote "progress" -- it wants to encourage the production of new works, not allow creators (and their children) to live off one of them for their entire lives.

Re:where does the 2023 date come from?

[Anonymous Coward]

120 years.

One. Hundred. And. Twenty. Fucking. Years.

That's just obscene.

Quote from article

[gd2shoe]

He wasn't referring to the Great Mouse Detective. He didn't need to to be on topic. From the article:

But Mr. Lellenberg said the group pays careful attention to the management of other venerable pop-cultural properties: the Walt Disney Company, which is preparing to celebrate the 82nd birthday of Mickey Mouse, has “always been at the leading edge” of intellectual property law, he said.

(Yeah, I don't expect anybody to read them. Most of the time I don't either.)

Re:Think like a politician

[El_Muerte_TDS]

If copyright is extended jobs are lost. You don't need to hire people to create new stuff because you can still earn money from the ancient stuff.

Re:Think like a politician

[shutdown -p now]

If you extend copyright: Some number of jobs (thousands, tens of thousands?) saved.

What jobs? Once the work is created, the author, strictly speaking, doesn't have a job, unless he starts working on a new one.

Or did you mean lawyers and accountants?

Re:i don't understand

[JAlexoi]

Or stay the fuck away from the US market. I pray to god, for you guys to have a revolution, since you are being fucked over by all of that "new royalty".

Re:where does the 2023 date come from?

[Donkey_Hotey]

And they say there's no need for a "-1: Obnoxious, Overbearing, and Clueless" moderation...

Copyright laws are theft of culture.

[Greymoon]

Copyrights are granted as a contract between society and the creator. Society grants protection for an artist's work for a brief time, in return society becomes the benefactor of these works once copyrights elapse. Failure to release works to public domain and instituting new copyright laws to lengthen copyright duration violate this contract, in effect theft of culture. Copyrights - 7 years. Patents - 10 years. Anything more is stealing your culture.

Re:where does the 2023 date come from?

[icebraining]

Yes, poor Conan Doyle. If we don't extend the copyright even further, he could die from starvation! Oh, wait...

Re:Wanna fix copyright?

[RyuuzakiTetsuya]

I'd rather fix healthcare than fix copyright.

One keeps me from freely distributing Mickey Mouse cartoons that are 100 years old, the other could break me(But wouldn't if I were in any other civilized 1st world nation).

Re:where does the 2023 date come from?

[Dotren]

The rich people used their resources and talents to acquire wealth whereas the poor did nothing to deserve the free money.

I'm a bit confused... how are an author's children, grand-children, and great grand-children any more deserving of this "free money"? They didn't write the book or use their talents to acquire this wealth, one of their ancestor's did.

I do agree an author needs to get paid, otherwise what is to encourage them to write more beyond their personal enjoyment of doing so? However, current copyright is extreme and, if big business has their way, will eventually be extended to infinity and the public domain will die. It is VERY possible to lose great works of culture if a company decides they want to spike the price of a certain work by stopping it's production for x amount of years.

I still think a set duration is best. Anywhere from 12 to 20 years sounds reasonable to me and gives the creator plenty of time to not only earn money from their work but also start on their next project. If they die during the copyright of a work then it should pass on to their estate but it should still expire at the end of it's allotted time.