The characters of Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson, created by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, have been at the centre of a long-running dispute over copyright ownership. Following the death of Sir Conan Doyle, the Conan Doyle Estate assumed ownership of those characters and routinely required authors wishing to use them to obtain a licence, offered at a cost of US$ 5000.<\/p>\n
When Leslie Klinger and Laurie King sought to publish a new anthology titled “In the Company of Sherlock Holmes,” the Conan Doyle Estate wrote to the publisher, Pegasus, reminding it of the licensing requirement. The Estate’s letter stated:<\/p>\n
\n“If you proceed instead to bring out Study in Sherlock II (the original title of In the Company of Sherlock Holmes) unlicensed, do not expect to see it offered for sale by Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and similar retailers. We work with those companies routinely to weed out unlicensed uses of Sherlock Holmes from their offerings, and will not hesitate to do so with your book as well.”<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n
Pegasus declined to proceed without a licence. Klinger, who took the view that the Sherlockean characters had passed into the public domain, brought a declaratory judgment action against the Conan Doyle Estate rather than submit to the licensing demand.<\/p>\n
Question Before the Court<\/h2>\n
Whether the characters of Sherlock Holmes, Dr. Watson, and other elements of the Sherlockean world depicted in stories published before 1923 had entered the public domain, or whether the copyright in those characters continued to subsist by reason of the later stories published between 1923 and 1927.<\/p>\n
Findings<\/h2>\n
Circuit Judge Posner, writing for the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals, found that the 46 stories and 4 novels written by Sir Conan Doyle before 1923 had been subject to copyright for 75 years from the date of publication, which expired no later than 1997. The 10 stories written between 1923 and 1927 were governed by an amended law under which copyright subsists for 95 years from the date of publication, expiring in the period 2018 to 2022. The original characters as portrayed in the pre-1923 works \u2014 including Sherlock Holmes, Dr. Watson, and the associated characters \u2014 were therefore in the public domain.<\/p>\n
By Order dated June 16, 2014, the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals clarified that the characters of the Sherlockean world, as depicted in those earlier works, are no longer protected by copyright. Only the novel traits or developments introduced in the final 10 stories \u2014 published between 1923 and 1927 \u2014 retain copyright protection until the respective 95-year terms expire.<\/p>\n
The Conan Doyle Estate petitioned for a writ of certiorari to the US Supreme Court. On November 3, 2014, the Supreme Court rejected that petition. The Seventh Circuit’s ruling thereby stood confirmed.<\/p>\n
Significance<\/h2>\n
As it stands, any character or element of the Sherlockean world, except for traits introduced in the last 10 stories, is part of the public domain. Authors may use Sherlock Holmes, Dr. Watson, and the established attributes of those characters \u2014 including the detective’s deerstalker hat and his methods of deduction \u2014 as protagonists or elements in new literary works without any requirement to obtain a licence from the Conan Doyle Estate. The ruling in Leslie Klinger v. Conan Doyle Estate Ltd<\/em>, Case No. 14-1128, did not establish a new legal principle; it confirmed what the copyright term calculations had long made clear.<\/p>\n
Disclaimer<\/h2>\n
This article is for general information and does not constitute legal advice. Readers should consult a qualified attorney before acting on any matter discussed here.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The US courts have confirmed that most Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson stories are in the public domain. This decision clarifies the legal status of these iconic characters and enables their free use without licensing from the Conan Doyle Estate.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"iawp_total_views":87,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,6,22,7],"tags":[6879,12809,93,6882,6881,1226,129,6880],"class_list":["post-17709","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-copyrights","category-intellectual-property","category-ip-commercialization-licensing","category-media-and-entertainment-law","tag-conan-doyle-estate","tag-copyright-expiry","tag-copyright-law","tag-dr-watson","tag-literary-characters","tag-public-domain","tag-sherlock-holmes","tag-us-court-decisions"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bananaip.com\/intellepedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17709","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bananaip.com\/intellepedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bananaip.com\/intellepedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bananaip.com\/intellepedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bananaip.com\/intellepedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17709"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.bananaip.com\/intellepedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17709\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":149707,"href":"https:\/\/www.bananaip.com\/intellepedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17709\/revisions\/149707"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bananaip.com\/intellepedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17709"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bananaip.com\/intellepedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17709"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bananaip.com\/intellepedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17709"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}