Business Investment

Who owns Sherlock Holmes?

The article I chose to talk about turns around a discussion of intellectual property rights of one of the most recognized pieces in the history: The Sherlock Holmes stories from Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Mr Leslie Klinger has been writing adventures of Sherlock Holmes for many years, but now he ran into trouble. “Conan Doyle's heirs claim that they have the right to extract license fees or suppress publication. Mr Klinger has responded by filing a lawsuit in a federal court in Chicago, arguing that he has not infringed copyright as the content in question is now in the public domain.”

By keeping this dispute in mind, it is possible to realize that the main idea/discussion that surrounds the case is the concept of copyright and trademark, along with the law that has been changed in the USA.

Analysis

The starting point of this lawsuit by Mr. Klinger is a new compilation of Holmes-derived stories which Mr Klinger has edited with Laurie King, a mystery novelist. The problem falls in the fact that the law in the USA has been changed for the right of the copyright. Every place else the copyright is characterized by being a protection that ceases 70 years after an author's death (In the case of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, he died in 1930, approximately 83 years ago). However, in the USA the copyright rule has been reformed by “introducing a "life plus" model in harmony with the rest of the world for works created starting in 1978, it retained its older term-limited system for property created between 1923 and 1977. Works produced within that range have had their expiration extended to a fixed 95-year term from first publication; anything produced earlier is in the public domain”. With that, approximately 10 stories from Arthur Conan Doyle fall in that period of time, and are still under copyright until 2023.

However, the estate