Showing posts with label efforts by Conan Doyle estate to reestablish copyright over some Sherlock Holmes stories in US. Show all posts
Showing posts with label efforts by Conan Doyle estate to reestablish copyright over some Sherlock Holmes stories in US. Show all posts

Wednesday, May 27, 2015

Mr Holmes and the strange case of the alleged copyright infringement; Guardian, 5/26/15

Ben Child, Guardian; Mr Holmes and the strange case of the alleged copyright infringement:
"The estate of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle is suing Hollywood studio Miramax over a forthcoming detective mystery starring Ian McKellen as an elderly Sherlock Holmes.
Bill Condon’s film Mr Holmes is based on the 2005 book A Slight Trick of the Mind by US author Mitch Cullin, but Conan Doyle’s heirs say it also borrows from later stories by the great Scottish novelist which remain under copyright in the US. Most Sherlock Holmes stories are now in the public domain, a situation which has led to a glut of productions featuring the famous sleuth on the big and small screens in recent years.
The new suit was filed in New Mexico, where Cullin was born, last week. It is the latest attempt by the Conan Doyle estate to re-establish copyright over Sherlock Holmes stories in the US, and follows the failure of a previous legal action last August."