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Sherlock Holmes Finally In the Public Domain In the US
ferrisoxide.com writes "As reported on the Australian ABC news website, film-makers in the US are finally free to work on Sherlock Holmes stories without paying a licencing free to the estate of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle after a ruling by Judge Ruben Castillo. A quirk of U.S. copyright law kept 10 stories out of the public domain, on the basis that these stories were continuously developed. In his ruling Judge Castillo opined that only the "story elements" in the short stories published after 1923 were protected and that everything else in the Holmes canon was "free for public use" — including the characters of Holmes and Watson.
Holmes scholar Leslie Klinger, who challenged the estate, celebrated the ruling.
'Sherlock Holmes belongs to the world,' Mr Klinger said in a statement posted on his Free Sherlock website.
IANAL, but the ruling of Judge Castillo that "adopting Conan Doyle's position would be to extend impermissibly the copyright of certain character elements of Holmes and Watson beyond their statutory period," is surely going to have implications across U.S. copyright law. Mark Twain must be twisting and writhing in his grave."
Disney will now be able to bring the stories of the the brothers Grimm to the big screen, like Snow White and Sleeping Beauty. No longer will our culture be stolen from us by dead people and uncreative "owners of intellectual property."
"National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
Is there any other way?
Er, the "the blood sucking scum called Hollywood" has already pissed all over Sherlock Holmes. I don't see how this changes anything.
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I've heard that the definition of a Scottish gentleman is one who knows how to play the bagpipes, but refrains from doing so.
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And? I never understood why this so called "IP" deserves to be treated differently than regular property. Does Ford get a cut of every used Ford ever sold? Does Joe the carpenter get a cut every time a house he built changes hands for decades?
Let me explain. If you write for example a book, there are in theory two ways to get paid for your work: A. Find someone who is willing to buy the book, copyright and everything, and pay you a fair value for the work. You are not going to see a penny after that. Or you get a little bit of money from everyone who buys it, forever. It's a different business model. Not one sale for big money, but many sales each giving you a tiny amount.
But look at it in a different way: Either you want a book, or a video, or a music performance, or you don't. If you don't want it, you shouldn't care whether it's for sale or free. And if you want it, then surely you should agree that it is _worth_ paying for. You can't seriously argue that you want it but it's not worth money.