Every year on January 1, new works enter the public domain. In 2023, all literary works, musical compositions, and movies first published or released in 1927 entered the public domain in the United States. Earlier works...more
Copyright in characters is not a new concept but it can take interesting twists. We saw this recently when litigation over the Netflix movie Enola Holmes raised the question just how far the term of copyright in Sherlock...more
Owners of copyright in characters are often well-advised not to press their claims too far in litigation at the risk of losing their rights altogether. This may be what motivated a quick settlement of litigation over Sherlock...more
This week, we return to Sherlock Holmes-themed blog posts. We finished the review of The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes and now move on to The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes. We began the adventure by considering one of the...more
Klinger v. Conan Doyle Estate, Ltd. - In another scathing opinion against the Sherlock Holmes estate, Judge Richard A. Posner ordered the estate to pay attorneys’ fees for bringing “nonexistent copyright claims” as a...more
Leslie Klinger, noted Sherlock Holmes scholar and lawyer, has waged a nearly all-out legal offensive against the Estate of Arthur Conan Doyle over the Estate’s assertion of a copyright in connection with certain works...more
Klinger v. Conan Doyle Estate, Ltd. - The original character of the famous detective Sherlock Holmes, along with his sidekick, Dr. John H. Watson, are no longer subject to copyright protection. In an opinion by Judge...more
Led by Judge Richard Posner, the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals recently refused what Posner called a “quixotic” attempt to extend copyright law. While the holding was perhaps to be expected, the opinion introduced a...more
In honor of the return of Sherlock Holmes to PBS with Season 3, I begin a week of Sherlockian themed posts. Today we consider the quality of justice that Holmes discussed in The Abbey Grange, he allowed a man who murdered a...more
FTC Makes New Year’s Resolution to Target Deceptive Weight-Loss Claims - While many Americans made New Year’s resolutions to lose weight or get in better shape, the Federal Trade Commission resolved to eliminate...more
Comedian Dmitri Martin has a great joke about the expression “sort of.” Although normally a fairly meaningless expression, saying “sort of” after certain things suddenly becomes very important. Such as after the phrase “I...more
Several recent cases have highlighted the interesting issue of whether and when fictional characters – as distinct from the works they inhabit – are subject to copyright protection. Over the years, courts have developed two...more