Sherlock Holmes Stories That Have Fallen Out of Copywrite Are Not Copywrited, Rules Judge
Leslie S. Klinger, editor of The New Annotated Sherlock Holmes, and Laurie R. King, author of the Mary Russell mysteries, sued over the Doyle literary estate's attempts to get them to pay literary fees.
(The estate's point of view -- the one that let them justify their action, that is -- was that since one of the Holmes books was still under copyright in the U.S., having been written after 1923, that all works based on Holmes must therefore be licensed even if they never refer to or make use of characters or their situations in the last book.)
Judge Rubén Castillo rejected that "novel legal argument".
The New York Times's March 6th or 7th article (the URL date doesn't match the "published" date) covers the issues in some detail (there's some hurt feelings involved too).
(The estate's point of view -- the one that let them justify their action, that is -- was that since one of the Holmes books was still under copyright in the U.S., having been written after 1923, that all works based on Holmes must therefore be licensed even if they never refer to or make use of characters or their situations in the last book.)
Judge Rubén Castillo rejected that "novel legal argument".
The New York Times's March 6th or 7th article (the URL date doesn't match the "published" date) covers the issues in some detail (there's some hurt feelings involved too).