Netflix might be in legal trouble for giving Sherlock Holmes "copyrighted" feelings
Aux Features Film
The public domain is a tricky concept—which is to say, there’s a lot of money wrapped up in it, and so people like to argue about it, often to frankly absurd lengths. For instance! A lawsuit—launched back in June, but getting more attention now that the film’s just released its first trailer—alleging that Netflix’s Enola Holmes infringes on the copyright of Arthur Conan Doyle’s family, because it shows Henry Cavill’s Sherlock having legally actionaable feelings.
See, the Doyle estate argues that, while they admittedly lost the copyright to all of the Holmes stories written before 1923—i.e., most of them—into the public domain back in 2014, it’s only in the latter stories that they still have the rights to that Doyle began to give Holmes recognizable human emotions. (A reaction, they argue, to Doyle wrestling with his grief over the loved ones he lost during World War I.) Said feelings—like, say, being worried about his (non-canonical) sister Enola—are thus a new element Doyle only introduced in those later stories, which makes them trademarked elements still controlled by the family, so pony up, MBB.
This isn’t the first time the estate has levied this argument; they previously made similar claims against Miramax’s 2015 release Mr. Holmes, which were subsequently settled out of court. Meanwhile, they do not appear to have tried this tactic with 2018's Holmes & Watson, presumably because “Being a big, dopey, surprisingly unfunny goober” wasn’t included in the “feelings” Doyle added to his later works. In any case, it’s a pretty wild legal argument, in that the family has ceded its control over Holmes’ body, but not over the workings of his inner heart.
119 Comments
tired: estates of dead celebrities committed to valiantly preserving their subjects’ integritywired: estates of dead celebrities jumping on any technicality to wring money from their cash cows
Yeah, this case is going to get thrown out of the court so fast.
In this economy?
Topical.
I mean, the previous case wasn’t…
Can’t they just sue Steven Moffat?
I think they were on board with Sherlock.
I mean for being shit.
For being a shit writer? That could be a class action suit
I watched that Netflix Dracula thing from beginning to end, and all I can say is that Lucy’s makeup worked much better as an out of focus reflection.
Right? I mean his Sherlock was basically a full-time drama queen.
Granted, I haven’t seen every episode of Elementary, but I do know there was at least one episode that ended with Holmes showing genuine remorse and compassion.
It seems to me that having a dampened or muted emotional experience is an emotional experience of its own. Emotions are so central to our experience that I’m inclined to believe that Doyle became a better writer after he’d already achieved some popularity for being good at making deductive reasoning compelling on the page.
It seems to me that having a dampened or muted emotional experience is an emotional experience of its own. Not at all. Also, screaming and foaming in anger about how emotions are a terrible frightening thing isn’t an emotion either.I learnt all that in “Equilibrium”.
women are the “emotional gender” because anger has been successfully branded “not an emotion”.
That’s what you learned?Man you got scammed, I learned Gun Kata.
I learned how to cut a mans face clean off with a katana. Is it bad I sorta love that movie?
Me too.
Fuckin sweet!Not at all, it’s a damn good flick. It’s a ‘Matrix clone’ that I enjoy more than The Matrix. Sure the script is wishy washy about the anti-emotion drugs but other than that it’s quality, plus the acting, cinematography and fight choreography are top notch.
I have a simple rule when watching movies. As long as it plays within its own set of rules for that reality, I’ll give it a shot. Gun kata is a pretty batshit crazy idea, but the movie sells it like a fucking pro. I still get happy during the lie detector bit at the end when his heartrate goes calm and the doctor shits himself.
This Equilibrium?
I learned how to slice off a guy’s face with a katana.
It seems to me that having a dampened or muted emotional experience is an emotional experience of its own. Although those with more normative emotional landscapes would disagree, this is an entirely valid deduction.
Just wait til they find out what they’re doing with the character in slash fiction.
I look forward to the trial being a scientific and philosophical exposition and debate—with many expert witnesses from various fields including literature, neurology, psychology, et al—about the nature of human emotions. Televise that shit.
Actually? this could make a great scripted series, The Trial of Sherlock Holmes.
It’s very clearly a bullshit attempt to get some free money on spurious legal grounds, but it’s also a bullshit reading of the stories. Holmes wasn’t a robot in the earlier books. Though there is something darkly amusing about the Doyle estate basically shouting “Our cash-cow was basically a one-dimensional cardboard cutout with no human appeal whatsoever until his last book, which is coincidentally the one we still own!”Though technically [PEDANT ALERT], the story that I assume they’re hanging their whole hat on — “The Adventure of the Three Garridebs”, which ends with Holmes basically threatening to kill a guy who shot Watson in the arm — was first published in 1922. Though I don’t know whether this means that legally they don’t have a leg to stand on or whether this is just a bit imprecise.
Thanks. When we speak of Holmes “feelings”, I always think of this scene, but couldn’t remember in which story it took place. 1922 (I get 1924 for it) is pretty late. But the other exemple I can think of is the obvious Scandal in Bohemia, which is very very early. Possibly the first short story. It’s ambiguous, closer to “for once Holmes wasn’t a major misogynist except he was” than to “he was obsessively in love”, but still, Adler has been described as his love interest in every Holmes adaptation ever since.The argument is ridiculous. But they would have found anything. “We still hold the rights of the story where he utters an exactly 23-letters long sentence !”
I believe that particular story was first published in magazine form in the Strand in 1922, then was collected in book form in 1924 (hence my [PEDANT ALERT]).
As this matter involves US copyright, the story’s publication there is the one that matters in court.
Yes, but as this matter involves a chance for me to be pedantic about something, that is what matters in this comment thread.
Going back and reading “A Scandal in Bohemia” after decades of other media presenting her as a love interest and you realize it’s really kind of a thin argument.Also“A Scandal in Bohemia” is a short story, so quotes, not italics. Sorry, I work in higher ed and deal with overbearing comp professors on a daily basis.
Also“A Scandal in Bohemia” is a short story, so quotes, not italics. Sorry, I work in higher ed and deal with overbearing comp professors on a daily basis.True story : I had almost answered to ScottyEnn that I came to the avclub because it’s the only place on the internet where I could be out-pedanted.Oh the delight.Seriously, yeah, I got tortured by this nomenclature too. Not anymore. I am free. Short stories are in italic, book titles are in comics sans serif. You will never catch me. Yahaha.
Oi oi oi. Ignore this MannyBones wanna-be. I’m still King Pedant round this manor.[Does that two-fingered “I’ve got my eye on you” thing towards MannyBones.]
Works published in 1924 entered the public domain in the U.S. on January 1, 2020, unless this fits under an exemption.
I think you mean The Woman.
This is more than likely to be the lawyers representing the estate sniffing a large job and commensurately large payout to themselves, than the estate itself seeing the issue.
Don’t sell desperate descendants short.
Perhaps, but the money-grubbing lawyers would presumably still need the okay from the estate to go ahead.
Honestly, that’s most of what being a lawyer is. You pretty much just stay abreast of pop culture and read hundred-year-old books looking for potential claims.Lawyers certainly don’t have enough work to do without coming up with outlandish and unlikely legal theories, and if there’s one thing lawyers LOVE to do, it’s do a bunch of complicated research they’re NOT getting paid for in hopes that someday, someone MAY pay them for it.
I’d like to see the estate counter-sued, bankrupted, and lose every last drop of Holmes to the public domain.
Ooh, yes please.
Why? It’s within their rights, and you’re not losing out in anything.
It’s in their rights to file frivolous lawsuits? It is certainly within their rights to freeload off their ancestor’s talent, although it should not be, but this kind of desperate money grab is disgusting.
oh its not like netflix can’t afford it. fuck em
If US copyright periods aren’t extended in the next three years, Holmes becomes fully public domain there anyway. (As has already happened in many countries, since the US’s mix of fixed-term copyright for older works and life+70 for newer is unusual.)
Don’t worry, Disney will use its considerable influence to get copyright extended again. Can’t lose the rights to Steamboat Willy.
US copyright is garbage and needs to be reformed big time. IMHO copyright should be for the lifetime of the creator. Once that person dies, they can leave the copyright to someone else for a period of 10 years (NO MORE THAN THAT!!), then it goes into the public domain. Disney and all the other companies can suck dicks for trying to make copyright “to infinity and beyond!!”
Oh, I agree that in 3 years this should all be a moot point, but the sheer litigious bullshit here by the Doyle estate ought to be used to drive them into the ground so hard that it becomes a warning to other copyright trolls that any similar vexatious litigation puts their very copyright holdings at risk.
Why is the Holmes estate not entitled to the copyright everyone else is? I hope you don’t try and create something in the future.
If you read the original article, you would know full well that the Holmes estate is engaging in copyright trolling. That is, they are suing people that they have no right to sue in the hope that they will be enough of a nuisance to get a settlement. People who act like this not only need to lose their lawsuits, they need to lose their copyright holdings.And, actually, as a published writer I do own several copyrighted stories and have even sold the rights to one of these as movie/TV options. I am absolutely not against the concept of copyright. I am against people lodging nuisance suits based on ridiculous legal arguments, who I might point out are almost never the original creators. Conan Doyle died in 1930. The fact that here we are ninety years later having a predatory copyright holder 4 generations removed from the author trying to parasitise the work of today’s creators shows that our copyright laws are designed to protect corporations and legal entities, not actual creators.
Holmes expresses worries about the safety of a young woman in The Adventure of the Solitary Cyclist, published in 1903. Thus proving he had concerns about the safety of young women in the public domain.
Edit: also the Adventure of the Copper Beeches. Published 1892. I could do this all day.
In order for it to be infringing, it would have to be the specific version of Holmes not present in public-domain works. Which they *can’t* do, because his behavior and emotions were present from the beginning, and *NETFLIX’S* version of Holmes, not the literary version still under copyright, has a sibling. So, even if this version of Holmes isn’t obviously not the public-domain Holmes, it is also clearly not the later ‘version’ of Holmes either (even if you were to buy that distinction).
Obviously each country has different copyright laws, but under US law if the “original” character is in the public domain, I would think that any subsequent version of that character would be a derivative of the original. Then when the original is in the public domain, all the derivatives go with it because they are built upon the now public domain material. A sad Holmes is still Holmes and should be part of the public domain. They clearly can’t claim copyright ownership of the emotion of sad or concern. The story would be copyrightable, but the underlying public domain character would not.
That’s a trickier area to define. For example, Mickey Mouse both is and isn’t in the public domain. The more modern version, that Disney uses for all its Mouse merchandise, is not in the public domain and won’t be for another 10 or 15 years (assuming Disney doesn’t **** with copyright durations further). The original black & white from Steamboat Willy, however, is in the public domain. And, over the next 10 to 15 years, more of the evolution of Mickey Mouse will also enter the public domain.In the Holmes care, however, there are plenty of public-domain instances of his behavior that completely undermines any such assertion of that behavior being a unique property of the copyright protected ‘version’ of Holmes. It’s a bad-faith lawsuit filed purely out of opportunistic greed, and as such, the filers, acting in bad faith, should suffer financial and legal consequences. Which, honestly, were it me, I’d have the entire legal profession enact a 3-strikes rule when it comes to bad faith legal actions: 3 strikes, and you lose your license to practice law.
I have to plead ignorance of the specifics of Mickey, but is the copyrightable character of Mickey of its visual depiction? Or is it since it’s a more fleshed out character from a cartoon mouse in Steamboat Willie that while visually similar are more or less completely different characters? I feel like I’m simultaneously undercutting my original thought here…Re: bad faith suits, I like your style
Yes, the current depiction of Mickey, as used by all Disney merchandise, is still under copyright. The original depiction of Mickey, as seen in Steamboat Willy, is not copyright protected. They are visually distinct enough that one cannot be mistaken for the other (except as maybe a cheap knockoff). The Holmes character, in this case, is not distinct or different in any way, shape, or form. He was never a cold, emotionless robot, which is what would be required to materially show a difference in characterization. And, of course, *neither* version of Holmes ever had a sibling, which makes any attempt to show material connection between versions entirely moot.
Various aspects of DC and Marvel comics characters appear to be in danger of losing copyright protection in the coming years. They have been quietly introducing new tropes to their canon for the past few years (and making retroactive deals with the heirs of the original creators in case the rights revert back to them.)
“Bad faith” is not going to work. What would be a workable definition for “bad faith” in this context? Unless there’s no plausible factual or legal basis for the claim, or no plausible argument that the law should be changed (for which there are already a number of motions for summarily dismissing an action,) it’s the lawsuit itself that’s supposed to determine the merits of a particular civil dispute. That’s not the case here since the Estate has a colorable claim even if it’s likely not to be a winning one. As for three strikes, have you ever met a public interest attorney? Those guys probably file more doomed lawsuits than anyone else in the legal field (except for certain churn and burn types) but they do it for good reason because in their minds they believe they are fighting to right a wrong. How can something done in good faith be defined as bad faith? Seeking to yank licenses for something as utterly subjective as filing 3 “bad faith” lawsuits is not the answer. It’s also a solution in search of a problem since most states have statutes for dealing with vexatious litigants and other than those guys nobody with half a brain is going to take on a dead-bang loser unless he or she is being paid by the hour. Most clients won’t typically pay by the hour to chase highly unlikely paydays. So, if the Doyle Estate is suing and the claim has no merit, it will be bounced out pre-trial. If it doesn’t get bounced out pre-trial it’s because there was either an issue of law or fact that a judge felt was sufficient to get to a jury or bench trial.
They also are in a weaker position because they never sued over the books. So to sue over the movie raises questions about motives. If Netflix can show their version stays close to the Enola Holmes book which they didn’t care about that should be a factor as well.
So ALL emotions aren’t copyrighted. Only the happy ones. If you watch all the Holmes movies and shows, he’s never happy. Always brooding. Sometimes angry. But never happy. Except for the UK show. Which apparently they can do because copyright laws in this case aren’t universal. Which is messed up. If the content was made in X country, than it should ONLY be held by that country’s laws.
Holmes continually expresses a sense of compassion towards those who not only are victims but perpetrators of crimes. His sense of justice and compassion to those he actually interacts with are a throughpoint of the short stories.
Copyright is copyright. Holmes is not completely free, so if you base your movie on the copywrited portion then yes, prepair to get sued. They have as much right to do that as Marvel does 60 year old comic book characters.
If they were making an adaptation of a still-owned story without paying, then you’d have a point. But “you owe us money because our version of the character is the only one with feelings” is both insanely vague and utterly unsupported by the actual stories. And the Marvel comparison doesn’t work at all. Marvel still own, say, the character of Iron Man in his entirety, so for better or worse they’re entirely right to stop anyone else making Iron Man stories. Even in the US, however, Sherlock Holmes is mostly in the public domain except for a handful of stories, and the approach they’ve taken is, again, utterly unsupported by the stories that are well within the public domain. This is transparently an attempt to exploit a legal loophole on spurious grounds.
Funny thing is that the Conan Doyle Estate don’t actually own the copyrights – the Sir Arthur Conan Doyle Literary Estates do.
The remaining members of the Doyle family are basically copyright-trolls. They sue productions of Arthur Conan Doyle’s works for copyright infringement, even if they have already purchased the licences from the SACNLE, and then usually settle out of court and sign a ‘Covenant Not to Sue’.The whole licensing history is very convoluted, but all the Conan Doyle family are after is $$$ before everything goes into the public domain in 2022.https://www.arthurconandoyle.com/copyrights.html
Sherlock Holmes In My Feelings Challenge 2020.
I guess the world will have to wait a few more years for my debut novel “Sherlock Holmes but he’s, like, Emo”
The Holmes copyright is a funny thing. Famously the makers of Star Trek TNG mistakenly believed Sherlock Holmes was in the public domain already when they produced their second season episode where Data plays Holmes, only to discover this was of course not the case.
False.Interesting rumor, but quite a bit old, and based in the rumormongering and random speculation of showrunners that weren’t a part of the second season’s production. The actual truth is a bit different. They were given legal troubles by the estate, but it’s because the TNG showrunners thought their use of the characters were covered under fair use, as a form of parody. From what I’ve been able to gather, they thought it would be covered as parody because Geordi and Data were playing Holmes and Watson. That wasn’t an issue. It was their usage of Moriarty that ultimately provoked the estate. They required that Paramount pay a licensing fee for any future usage.And they did. You’ll note that Season 6’s “Ship In A Bottle” actually does credit the Doyle estate.
Meh, if it worked for them before then no harm in trying for it again. In other words #fucknetflix
Not that Netflix is perfect, but how are they in the wrong here? Sherlock Holmes is firmly established to be in the public domain and several creative works have used him as such recently. The argument that showing him having feelings was something only done in later stories is flat out wrong, and even if it wasn’t, there legal argument would still be insane. The estate also ignored the book that this was based on, which puts them on even shakier ground. This has every sign of a spurious lawsuit made to try to get Netflix to just pay them a bit of money to go away, and whatever you think of the defendant in general, that use of the legal system is awful.
go read my original comment
Your original comment was fairly vague, to the degree that I’m having a hard time even understanding what you meant. “Meh, if it worked for them”: what is “it?” Spuriously suing people? Making adaptations of Sherlock Holmes? Who is “them?” Conan Doyle’s estate? Netflix? You’re using pronouns without the proper context to allow others to understand what nouns you meant. By “#fuckNetflix,” I’m assuming that you’re not siding with Netflix here (to put it mildly), but everything before that was so vague that I’m not understanding why.
Fine, if suing (verb) worked for the Holmes estate (noun) previously, then there is no harm in them (the holmes estate) trying it (suing) again. #fucknetflix (biiiig verb)
OK. Thank you for the clarification. I still maintain that this lawsuit is an abuse of copyright law and would set a bad precedent if they won despite whatever you feel about Netflix in general, but I get what you mean at least.To provide an example of what I mean: I hate “Blurred Lines,” and I don’t like Robin Thicke, but him losing the lawsuit for copyright infringement on that song set a bad precedent (it basically allowed a copyright on an extremely commonly used chord progression, which is bad. It would be like barring writers from using specific, common words in their works). I feel a similar way here, as their argument could be used to justify a ridiculous amount of bad faith lawsuits and would stifle creative freedom.
And yet somehow, I’m willing to bet Mickey Mouse won’t be entering the public domain any time soon…
He’ll enter the public domain in 2024. Well, his copyright will expire in 2024. He’ll remain a trademark of the Disney corporation, and copyrights and trademarks follow completely different sets of rules.
And in the next decade or so, Superman, Batman and a whole host of other major IP.
So Disney has 4 years to change the rules again… gotcha.
Given reviews of some of Cavill’s previous performances I think Netflix can safely argue that his Sherlock Holmes is two dimensional and devoid of any real emotion.
I wonder if Sherlock and Moriarty both have mothers name Martha?
Why did you say that name?
HA!!!!
wHy DiD yOu SaY tHaT nAmE?!?
Glad somebody used the typography from Snyder’s original screenplay.
I’m all about that typographical verisimilitude.
Hm.
I wouldn’t really use a film series that managed to make Amy Adams uncharismatic as a way to evaluate an actor’s ability. From what I’ve heard, Cavill was great in The Tudors, and I can personally vouch that he was pretty great in the last Mission Impossible film (not the most demanding role, sure, but he was able to emote). And while the film around him was awful, his performance in Justice League was actually pretty solid for the most part in my opinion. Once he was fully back to life, he actually managed to have a decent bit of the charm and charisma that Superman should have, just no one noticed this because a) no one watched Justice League and most of those who had probably checked out by that point, b) their opinion of his performance had already been set by two films where he was directed to show all of the emotional range of a boulder, c) that uncanny valley lip, and d) he was barely in the movie, and during part of the time that he was in the movie he was a mindless rage monster that didn’t allow him to show off his acting ability.I think that he actually would have been a good Superman if he was given a decent script and some good direction.
It’s such a strange thing to try to copyright…. someones emotional makeup. Like if in 80 years George Lucas’s descendants (or Disney) claimed to own the anger and rage of Darth Vader, or the stoic attitude masking the pain of Obi Wan.
If they received a settlement once, they’re certain to try again.
There was an earlier story wherein Holmes and Watson burst into a couple’s apartment looking for a kidnapped child. “Where’s your warrant, Mr. Holmes,” they ask. Holmes sticks a gun in the dude’s face. “Here’s my warrant.” That sounds pretty emotional.In “Norwood Builder” Holmes shows the emotions of agitation and frustration when, as he points out, all the facts point one way and all his “instincts” in another. That sounds pretty emotional.In “The Speckled Band” Holmes seems very concerned with the danger the young lady is in and seems pretty mad (albeit in a cold kinda way) at her evil father.I’ll be very sad if they win this.
Honestly Sherlock Holmes is a great case study for a need for a global copyright law/treaty that we all agree on. Holmes has been in public domain since 2000 in the UK and most the rest of the world, but the US copy right laws allow for much more time mostly because Disney throws piles of money at law makers every time Mickey Mouse comes close to being public domain.That means that the show Sherlock in the UK didn’t need to pay anyone but when they imported it to the US they had to pay the Holmes estate. That sorta thing is rather silly. Regardless the estate tried to fight around 2013 to say that since some of the Holmes and Watson work was not in public domain the characters were not, but they were rules against in that so they have been trying to work this new silly angle about character traits ever since. The fact is, if this was some sort of unknown work of fiction that was rarely ever adapted and the estate was trying to get some recognition, I would probably side with the creator and his descendants. But the fact is this is Sherlock Holmes! Possibly one of the most adapted characters in modern literature. I am sure the estate has made plenty of money from the character
Seems like a great example of why we shouldn’t have a uniform copyright law. Any global copyright law would in practice mean everyone else having to obey American – i.e. Disneyan – copyright laws, and everything will be locked up in copyright until the sun explodes.
When copyright was invented, it lasted 14 years if the author was dead, or 28 years if the author was still living. Now American copyright lasts around 100-150 years, and it keeps getting longer. This serves no purpose other than creating a class of rentier estates who are saved from the burden of labour or innovation by being given the ‘rights’ to demand a levy for the simple fact of their ancestor having been imaginative. It’s absurd.
Modern American copyright terms square up pretty well with what most of Europe has: life of the author plus 70 years (or 70 years from date of publication, in the case of works for hire).However, that change to copyright law was made during the 1970’s, and only applies to works published since that time. Works published before then are still covered under the old copyright law, where (assuming proper registration, renewal, and copyright notices were practiced) it’s 95 years from date of publication.And depending on how long the author lived after publishing the story, this can result in stories falling into the public domain in the United States even while they remain under copyright in Europe, as well as the inverse.For instance, while the later Sherlock Holmes stories remain under copyright in the U.S. (for another few years, at any rate; they’ll all be public domain by 2023), some of the earlier Hercule Poirot stories (The Mysterious Affair at Styles, Murder on the Links, and several short stories) are now in the public domain in the U.S., and more will continue falling into the public domain each year, while in Agatha Christie’s native Britain, they’ll all remain under copyright until 2047).
Is it the copyright on Mickey the character in general, or is it the copyright on “Steamboat Willie” in particular? Because I’d think that Mickey being in constant use with an active trademark would protect the character anyway. They’re specifically trying to wring money out of a 100-year-old animated short.
Seems to me that it’s more important to Disney to prevent others from wringing money from Mickey.
Right, but my point is that the active trademark on Mickey Mouse prevents that anyway, regardless of the copyright status of “Steamboat Willie.”
It’s interesting that they didn’t care when it was a book and only care given Netflix has deep pockets.
Ugh. Copyright is broken. This is utterly ridiculous.
The ‘Doyle estate’ consists of very distant relations of ACD, who had five children, none of whom had children of their own. His two sons from his second marriage spectacularly mismanaged the cash cow they had been handed, preferring to live champagne lifestyles and raid the piggy bank to do so rather than do the work to ensure that the estate continued to provide the revenues it could so easily have done (the Agatha Christie estate is the precise opposite of how the ACD heirs managed things, and the poster child for how to do it right when you’re handed a golden goose).Having missed out for all those years, while also contending with a contentious legal battle over rights, the estate is desperate to make what money it can while it can. I’m a longtime Sherlockian, and have met a couple of the heirs at different events. The Sherlockians are there because we’re passionate about Holmes and Watson and that world where it is always 1895; the heirs have almost no interest in the Holmes canon beyond what’s in it for them.
Hmm. Don’t think “actionaable” is a word. Where are the editors???
It’s a pretty high bar, but this is the dumbest copyright-based lawsuit that I’ve ever heard of.
If Henry Cavill is playing Holmes, the suit he is wearing in that photo really ought to be sleeveless.
Hey! If the Doyle people win this one, does that mean that the writer of the Enola books can sue the folks who made the Sherlock series? After all she thought of the idea of Sherlock Holmes having a smart younger sister at least 6 years before they did. Obviously they ripped her off.
Sherlock Holmes has got another thing coming if he thinks that he is bringing Cobra Kai back to The Valley! Not on my watch, pal.
They should stop adapting Doyle at this point, and move on to Maurice LeBlanc’s “Arsene Lupin” series.
Specifically when his master criminal takes on the world’s greatest detective in the amazingly titled “Arsene Lupin vs. Herlock Sholmes.” Leblanc was threatened with legal action by Doyle, so he made a little adjustment.
I gotta say, I loved reading it, and I would love if it would piss of the estate.
this is WHY Public Domain is so importantotherwise we’d have NO media what if someone owned Shakespeare? we’d really be fucked wouldn’t we?
In any case, it’s a pretty wild legal argument, in that the family has ceded its control over Holmes’ body, but not over the workings of his inner heart.
Hehe… 😄 Reminds me of this passage from William Gibson’s Neuromancer:“It own itself?”
“Swiss citizen, but T-A own the basic software and the mainframe.”
“That’s a good one,” the construct said. “Like, I own your brain and what you know, but your thoughts have Swiss citizenship. Sure. Lotsa luck, AI.”
This may be an unpopular take but some family members of famous dead authors need to get real jobs. Toklien, Herbert etc. Their sons are milking off fathers names and producing not nearly as good writing. Sounds Like Doyal’s family is doing the same.
In fairness, Tolkien’s works aren’t that old, and his son did a lot of editing and preservation on addition to selling movie rights.
From what i read the other day, Happy Holmes is only like 3 years away from public domain. So why wouldn’t they have just waited?
This is one of the most insane and inane lawsuits in a very long time. Ranks up there with Apple trying to patent rounded corners.
So they’re willing to let goofy & incompetent Holmes, Sociopathic Holmes and a Holmes that does bare knuckle street fighting pass through but not a Holmes that has feelings and cares? I think they haven’t really read the stories/subject matter and just claim to be experts by association.
They are aware that Holmes did care, he took on cases for people (especially women) that no one would taken seriously or maybe that’s why they don’t like to consider this version of Holmes where he might even be considerate of the thoughts or feelings of a woman.
Remember when Christopher Tolkien sued over a t-shirt or something? This is dumber.
which makes them trademarked elements still controlled by the familyNO! Bad AV Club. [sprays water in face]. COPYRIGHT. Not trademark.
Interesting stuff. I practice copyright law and analyzed the merits of this case for my blog if anyone’s interested. https://copyrightlately.com/enola-holmes-copyright-infringement-case/
To Sherlock Holmes she is always THE woman. I have seldom heard him mention her under any other name. In his eyes she eclipses and predominates the whole of her sex. The opening to the very first Sherlock Holmes story. Holmes may not have loved Irene Adler but he did admire her and admiration is an emotion.