Slashdot Mirror
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."
Basically, nobody wants to give up rights to it because they can make money from it.
What would Brian Boitano do?
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.
All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain.
Sherlock Holmes on Project Gutenberg
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.
I want a new quote. One that won't spill. One that don't cost too much. Or come in a pill.
Mr. Lellenberg said that Sherlock Holmes remains under copyright protection in the United States through 2023, and that any new properties involving the detective “definitely should” be licensed by the Conan Doyle estate. Asked about a recent Red Bull television commercial that features a cartoon Holmes and Watson, Mr. Lellenberg said he had not seen it. “Very interesting,” he said. “News to me.”
He then twirled his mustache, petted the Persian cat on his lap, raised an eyebrow, tilted his head, rubbed his hands together, and said: "release the lawyers!"
Entomologically speaking, the spider is not a bug, it's a feature.
So you create copyright works in country A, and when that expires you then renew your copyright in country B? After that expires will they just transfer it yet again to another country and extend it yet again? Since all of these countries have [evil] trade treaties copyright in one is copyright in all....
Copyright is seriously out of control and I point the finger squarely at the US for creating this greedy flawed system...
The article doesn't explain precisely why it's still under copyright, except that it was renewed in 1981 after falling into the public domain, as permitted by the Copyright Act of 1976. But why hasn't it fallen back into the public domain again? Looking through this chart, I can't find any combination of circumstances that would allow an 1887 work, whose author died in 1930, to remain in copyright until 2023.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
The Conan Doyle family would like your pity.
They were forced to obtain and maintain the copyright on the Sherlock Holmes stories. It's so terribly hard managing all those bank accounts.
In fact, Jean Conan Doyle said that "Sherlock Holmes was the Conan Doyle family curse."
I certainly feel something for the family now.
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?
If you extend copyright: Some number of jobs (thousands, tens of thousands?) saved. IP exports generating US revenue. No real downside other than "What, you extended it again?" and no clear loser.
No wonder they extend it. They have no real case against doing so.
Wasn't Professor Moriarty put in charge of the U.S. Patent Office?
"Yes, really, Watson. I'm sure the Traveler will allow us the use of his machine."
"Is there no other way, sir? This seems most excessive..." Watson trailed off, fully aware of the futility in trying to sway Holmes from his conviction. Perhaps Holmes is right. Nip this in the bud while the opportunity still remained.
"Sir, how do you suggest we approach this matter? Surely you cannot expect to drop in from a century in the future and expect tea and scones? The matter of that rather scary looking contraption you wish to employ needs to be addressed as well, sir."
"Quite simple, Watson. I intend that we should mount this "contraption", as you put it, and set the controls to precisely 19 feet in elevation, the corner of Glasshouse and Regent, on the morning of August 16 in the year 1974. Then return." Holmes removed his spectacles and gave them a quick rubbing with the bottom edge of his smoking vest, closely watching Watson from the corner of his eye. The smoke from his pipe cloaked his gaze from Watson.
Watson's eyes glazed slightly as he took in what Holmes had just said. Then they widened. Then they widened more.
"You cannot be serious, sir! You mean to crush Ms. Nina under that contraption?" Watson said, his astonishment tinged with an obvious air of distaste. "Sir, I implore you. Have we really come to this? Time traveling assassins?"
Holmes, more tired then he had ever been in his life, gave Watson a sad, almost regretful smile. "If we are ever to live the life Arthur intended, to solve the riddles that require solving, to live up to our potential, she must die. Then all will be right in the world of Sir Doyle."
Watson, always the one to find some solace in the worst of circumstances, flashed Holmes a quick grin of highly polished teeth. "Can I bring a camera?"
That Americanism says it all...
Excuse me, but please get off my Pennisetum Clandestinum, eh!
Because this is a typical kdawson article, that in this case picked a New York Times article that was itself also clueless.
Most Holmes stories were published prior to 1923 and are in public domain in the US. The remaining stories are copyrighted, but if you don't use any elements from those copyrighted stories you should be fine, and since they are only a few at the end, it really isn't all that hard not to use anything from those stories. To say that Sherlock Holmes is copyrighted until 2023 is a little misleading--if you want to use material covering his entire Doyle career (his last Doyle story was 1927), then you have to wait until 2023, but you generally won't need to.
For me that page says - Print List Price: $3.99, Kindle Price: $2.35 includes VAT & international wireless delivery via Amazon Whispernet, You Save: $1.64 (41%). So maybe it's free to US Kindle owners, but not international ones. Poor dumb saps.
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".
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.
You can Trademark a character, but you can't Copyright him.
You can Copyright "The Hound of the Baskervilles" (which is in the Public Domain), but "Sherlock Holmes" isn't Copyrightable.
Note that much of the Holmes canon is in the Public Domain, since it was originally published in the 19th century. There are only a few Conan Doyle stories (and a great many movies and Holmes stories by other authors) that were Copyrighted late enough to still be under Copyright.
Note also that owning the Trademark for Holmes allows one to play goalkeeper for anyone who wants to do an original Holmes work (and extract money in the process), but it doesn't actually allow one to control the republishing of the original Holmes stories from the 19th Century.
"I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
You do understand that Creative Commons licenses are legally based on the very same copyright you want to get rid of, right?
That Anonymous Coward guy is pretty annoying. Can we have the government censor him or something?
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).
Non impediti ratione cogitationus.
I got them all from Project Gutenberg. And kudos for getting the word "upon" into the summary.
--
Stay tuned for some shock and awe coming right up after this messages!
So you're another idiot who thinks that since the US is better off financially than all other "1st world nations", we should copy the countries that are worse than us.
We're not better off financially than other first world nations. We're probably worse, thanks to relaxed regulations and regulation enforcement.
"Universal healthcare" is universal theft.
So is inflating prices so you can pay for a staff to handle gross inefficiencies in the medical billing system, so is inflating prices for drugs for the motive of profit.
To "fix healthcare", it is necessary to remove all incentives which make it more expensive than it should be.
* End laws which make employee health insurance an untaxed expense.
* Make possible the purchase of medical insurance across state lines.
* End the absurdly high lawsuit rewards that make insurance for doctors so expensive.
* End the FDA control over medicine approval
* End licensing of healthcare professionals.
1) This would make healthcare more expensive and could cause my employer to reduce coverage through our group plan or drop it all together
2) This would cause a flight of insurance companies to flee to states like Texas where there are very relaxed regulations resulting in lower quality of care
3) Except this has been done in Texas, Nebraska and other states and insurance costs *didn't* go down for malpractice insurance, it kept going up.
4-5) So I can have a quack doctor prescribe something that is either ineffective or *worse* than science based medicine?
There are many more, and the amount that these would reduce expenses is surprising. Did you know that insurance companies always negotiate payments, and usually end up paying about half the billed amount? Just the five above would cut medical expenses by roughly 75%. That brings medical care into the price range that any moderately careful person could afford without insurance, excepting only catastrophic events requiring intensive longterm care. For this last case one might buy catastrophic medical insurance, at prices much lower than the absurd rates we see today.
The problems wouldn't go away. There'd be no price controls at all, your insurance would be horrible and it'd make life much worse for those who aren't absurdly wealthy independently.
You'd have quacks performing the Gonzalez Treatment and billing out the ass for it(or more than it's worth, which is nothing, considering it's likely it's worse than doing nothing) too. This is atrocious.
Non impediti ratione cogitationus.