Sherlock Holmes Set to Public Domain in January 2023

December 30, 2022 By Jozeph P

(Image Credit Google)

Any creation's creative intellectual property rights cannot be locked away forever. They eventually become public domain. According to Duke Law School's Center for the Study of the Public Domain, the beginning of 2023 will see the end of US copyrights on a variety of characters, and creative works will be released from their legal shackles and made available to anyone to use as they see fit. Among the works are Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's final Sherlock Holmes stories, Metropolis, Virginia Woolf's To the Lighthouse, and The Jazz Singer, the first full-length "talkie" film. Winnie the Pooh became public domain last year, and his story has since been adapted into a horror film set to be released in 2023. The Public Domain Review provides an excellent breakdown of how various countries and regions define public domain. This year, works created in 1927 will become public domain in the United States when the New Year arrives.

The Holmes news, in particular, marks the end of a tortuous legal debate over how the character should be treated under copyright law. Several of Doyle's earlier works were already in the public domain prior to 2019, but the author's estate argued that this should not be changed. This resulted in a number of legal squabbles over unlicensed new Sherlock Holmes stories, including a now-resolved suit against Netflix for its spinoff Enola Holmes. A judge ruled in 2013 that Holmes fan Leslie S. Klinger had the right to publish pre-1923 Holmes stories, despite the estate's claim that many depictions of the Baker Street detective were based on later stories. Furthermore, Conan Doyle's final two Holmes stories, "The Adventure of the Veiled Lodger" and "The Adventure of Shoscombe Old Place," will join their brethren in the public domain, bringing the character fully into fair use.

By Jozeph P

Journalism explorer, tech Enthusiast. Love to read and write.

Sherlock Holmes Set to Public Domain in January 2023

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