R, the singular case of the detective, the mouse, and the washed-up pop star.

Depending on your country of origin, all or part of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s works on Sherlock Holmes, known affectionately as The Canon, are considered to have had their copyrights expire. For example, in Canada (where I’m based) and in the United Kingdom, as far as I know, all the works are now in the public domain and may be freely downloaded, shared, copied, printed and even sold, a fact which explains all those $2 classic paperbacks at your local mega-bookstore. Most Berne Convention countries have an expiry date of the life of the author plus fifty years, and Doyle passed away in 1930.

In the United States, however, it’s a little different. Several years ago, congressman Sonny Bono (formerly of the 60’s and 70’s duo Sonny and Cher) introduced an act to extend copyright [Wikipedia], an act that was supposedly lobbied for quite heavily by the Disney corporation in order to prevent Mickey Mouse from entering the public domain. Under its terms, no works created after 1923 would enter the public domain until 2019. The practical upshot of this is that the later Holmes stories are still considered protected under US law, even though in most of the world they are not. (Note that these dates seem to vary a little according to each of the sources I’ve read — all other things considered, the Wikipedia entry seems to have the most consistent facts.)

These copyright expiration conflicts have also engendered some confusion for other Holmes projects over the years, such as television shows, films and books, and have led to legal issues, unreasonable demands for licensing/royalty monies, court challenges, production delays, the inability to broadcast or release certain media in different countries, and so forth.

To further complicate matters, the creators of many Holmes films and other projects never applied for copyright protection, or let the copyrights lapse through carelessness, forgetfulness, or legal ownership issues. This is why four of the Rathbone films are considered to be public domain, but the others are not, and why most US radio shows recorded before 1978 are not considered covered.

So, while all the works of Sir ACD can be freely downloaded and shared throughout much of the world, be careful in the U.S., lest you violate copyright: much of the Casebook is off-limits for downloading. For more information, see this short article concerning copyright at Sherlockian.net, which references a more detailed blog posting a bit of literary detective work by the Grumpy Old Bookman himself, Michael Allen. And let’s not even get bogged down by discussions of whether a character under copyright (or is it trademark?) in one area, and for only a partial body of work, might inhibit use of the character elsewhere. U.S. copyright issues make the Grimpen Mire look mighty inviting indeed.

I am not a lawyer, so if you think any of the above is valid legal advice in any way, I have a nice little Encyclopaedia Brittanica I’d like you to copy. Any legal pundits wish to fill me in on the (inevitable) errors above?

The original Mickey Mouse from the graphic above was shamelessly and gratuitously knicked from the Diogenes Club. I would have asked, but a large-set man kept shushing me.