Sherlock Holmes Is in the Public Domain, American Judge Rules
I am fascinated by the nuance that went into this decision. The argument by the Doyle estate intrigues me: they claim that the characters themselves (as a sort of platonic form) were not fully developed until Doyle stopped writing.For example, they would argue that in every story, Watson had once played rugby, though this fact wasn't published until a later story. Thus this aspect of Watson's character is still protected. The real meat of their argument is that the pieces that were "discovered" after 1923 are so central to Watson that there's no un-copyright-ed Watson left if those pieces are still protected. (But the judge rejected that argument.)This seems sensible if you imagine Sir Doyle "discovering", not "inventing", Watson.