Watching
(and thoroughly enjoying) Elementary
last week set my mind drifting to the question of copyright. How wonderful, I
thought, that the character of Sherlock Holmes, having achieved literary
immortality, is now in the public domain, allowing a new generation of writers
and filmmakers unlimited freedom to adapt Holmes and Watson to the modern era
or invent new stories featuring them in their own time.
It turns
out that, as Humphrey Bogart said in Casablanca,
I was misinformed.
A couple of
days later, I came across an article in the Times about how the estate of
Arthur Conan Doyle has been aggressively collecting licensing fees from authors
and filmmakers wanting to use Holmes (and/or Watson) as characters, even though
most of the stories were written before the beginning of the Twentieth Century.
The reasoning is that ten of them were first published in the U.S. in 1923, are
still subject to the copyright law, and, being part of an entire body of work
featuring the character of Holmes render the character still protected. That
argument is now being challenged in court, and it will be fascinating to see
how it turns out.
Fourteen Years Is Not Enough
America’s
first copyright law was passed in 1790 and provided that an original work could
be copyrighted for a period of 14 years, with an option to extend the copyright
another 14 if necessary. In 1909 the law was amended (not for the first time)
to make the copyright period 28 years with a 28-year renewal. Beginning in 1976
the periods were progressively extended to the point where a copyright is now
good for 95 to 120 years, with no need for renewal.
At the risk
of sounding like Glenn Beck, I think they had it pretty much right in 1909. If
the 28-28 rule were still in effect, readers everywhere would benefit from
cheap editions (print and online) of such books as A Farewell to Arms, The Great Gatsby, Gone With The Wind, The Grapes of
Wrath, and more than half the writings of Agatha Christie.
Copyright
law, as originally conceived, had two purposes: to protect the authors of
creative work and to ensure that that work eventually entered the public domain
and became broadly available to the public and subject to use and
interpretation by other creators. Instead, we have such absurdities as the
just-released Oz the Great and Powerful
being unable to use Dorothy’s ruby slippers because they are deemed to be
protected under the copyright of the 1939 Wizard
of Oz.
When My Ox Is Being Gored
Last year,
I published my first mystery novel, so I suppose I should be grateful for the
benefits of a 95-year copyright, in the event the book really takes off at some
point along the line. I still think it’s ridiculous. That’s three times longer
than I have any reasonable expectation of living, and my only son would be 117
years old when the copyright expired. A 56-year copyright would have been just
fine, even if it leaves Nick without royalties at the age of 78. I expect he’ll
be able to take care of himself at that point.
If my book
were to go into the public domain in 56 years, there’s a chance that someone
might discover it, bring it back to life in a cheap e-book edition, and get
some new readers for it, in some way keeping my memory alive. When I’m dead,
that would be more important than getting some hypothetical royalties into the
hands of a geezer great-grandchild I never knew.
