ARTIST NOTE: Be careful when appropriating work in the public domain- particularly if you plan to distribute your new work online. Copyright protection can expire in one country while remaining intact in another. Therefore, special care should be taken when distributing and licensing creative works internationally.

REAL-LIFE EXAMPLE: Arthur Conan Doyle's Character, Sherlock Holmes.

WHAT'S THE STORY?

A 2014 article by NPR illustrated an eye-full: In the UK, Copyright protection remains for 50 years after the death of the work’s author. In the US, copyright protection depends on when, in the last century, a work was published and copyright notice was given. In this case, it’s relevant to know that anything published before 1923 is now in the public domain. Most of the Sherlock Holmes stories were published between 1887 and 1917, with the exception of 10 stories published after 1922.

When Arthur Conan Doyle died in 1930, his copyright in the UK was set to expire in 1980, and it did. In the US, it seemed that Sherlock Holme’s was fully protected under copyright because part of the characters and stories were still validly protected. However, the courts recently ruled that just because part of the series of a particular character are protected, it does not provide blanket protection for the stories and character descriptions published in previous years.

In other words, the Sherlock Holmes Characters and stories published before 1923 are a part of the public domain, and therefore any owners of the remaining Copyright cannot demand people who use those characters and story elements pay a licensing fee. As for the 10 stories published after 1922? They are still protected. So while a new author can create a series of new adventures for Sherlock Holmes, they cannot utilize the story line or character elements introduced in the 10 protected stories.

If you’re curious about the potential copyright protections for other works published in the US over the past century, take a look at this time-table.