In 'Sherlock Holmes' Rights Dispute, Conan Doyle Estate Slammed Again — hollywoodreporter.com

Sherlock Holmes, meet 7th Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Richard Posner. In June, Judge Posner decided that much of the Sherlock Holmes canon was in the public domain. He ruled in favor of author Leslie Klinger, arguing that copyright has expired on most Sherlock Holmes story elements since all but ten of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes stories predate 1923. In determining this, Posner rejected the Doyle estate's arguments that Holmes was a "complex" character whose fictional personality couldn't be dismantled into in- and out-of-copyright parts.

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