SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
from the who-was-not-a-Jeopardy-contestant dept.
SCOTUSblog tells us:
Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan refused on Thursday afternoon to block a federal appeals court ruling against continued copyright protection for fictional detective Sherlock Holmes, for any stories about him that have entered the public domain. Kagan acted without even asking for a response from an author who is preparing a new Holmes anthology, and she gave no explanation for her denial of a stay.
More background on the case and details about the filing in this detailed earlier SCOTUSblog post which notes:
[Sir Arthur Conan] Doyle has been dead for eighty-four years, but because of extensions of copyright terms, ten of his fifty-six short stories continue to be protected from copying. All of the short stories and four novels were published between 1887 and 1927, but all of the collection except ten short stories have entered into the public domain as copyrights expired.
The Doyle estate, though, is pressing a quite unusual copyright theory. It contends that, since Doyle continued to develop the characters of Holmes and Watson throughout all of the stories, the characters themselves cannot be copied even for what Doyle wrote about them in the works that are now part of the public domain and thus ordinarily would be fair game for use by others.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by nyder on Saturday July 19 2014, @01:19PM
Nice to see we have at least one sane judge out there.
If they want to make money from new stories, they should be writing them, not forcing everyone to pay a license fee for a character that was made over 100 years ago.
(Score: 1) by theronb on Saturday July 19 2014, @01:55PM
From TFA, "The Doyle estate, though, is pressing a quite unusual copyright theory." They thought they'd try out this flakey idea and the court didn't buy it. No news here - courts reject flakey ideas from money grabbers quite regularly.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Hairyfeet on Saturday July 19 2014, @04:18PM
The mere fact that some of his stories are still "protected" even though the man died a decade before WWII frankly ought to make everybody want to puke, of course as long as Disney can keep buying congress old douchey Jack Valenti's "forever minus a single day" will be the law when it comes to copyrights on anything made after 1930.
ACs are never seen so don't bother. Always ready to show SJWs for the racists they are.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by frojack on Sunday July 20 2014, @12:31AM
On the other hand, Disney seems to get its way every time.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 5, Funny) by davester666 on Saturday July 19 2014, @07:18PM
woohoo, finally stuff from the 1800's is leaving copyright protection!
course, now all their heirs are going to have to live in poverty, because the royalty stream is going to dry up.
we better extend copyright terms again, because I have no incentive to create anything unless my great great great grandchildren will still be able to make money from it.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 19 2014, @09:17PM
"course, now all their heirs are going to have to live in poverty, because the royalty stream is going to dry up."
Well they don't have to live in poverty. They could, you know, get a job or something. My grandpa made hundreds of millions. I got a job at 15 and I have worked all my life. Oh I've had perks and advantages that many people don't get, but the money has to be extra, not define who you are.
(Score: 2) by bucc5062 on Saturday July 19 2014, @09:32PM
Hey, would you or your grandpa want to invest in a small horse farm located in South Carolina?
Wait..no...just kidding...unless you're interested. You have no way of making money, but boy you'd help a good person achieve a dream, work his ass off for little money, but maybe retire poor but happy. See, my pappy, being a minister, didn't make much, got demencia before he died, changed his will thanks to my POS sister and left his sons with nothing from his paltry estate. I'll get there, but boy howdy I'm getting fucked by the real estate market and time.
I do agree, money should not define who you are.
The more things change, the more they look the same
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 19 2014, @11:37PM
now all their heirs are going to have to live in poverty
Intellectual property was never meant to be a retirement plan.
From Article 1 Section 8: [wikipedia.org]
To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries
Note also that it does NOT mention heirs anywhere there.
I'll bet all these people call themselves Christians.
Let's see what their scriptures say about this:
if any would not work, neither should he eat
2 Thessalonians 3:10 (KJV)
Seems like a fair arrangement to me.
-- gewg_
(Score: 4, Informative) by dry on Sunday July 20 2014, @03:55AM
It's older then the American Constitution. The originals full name was
also known as the Statute of Anne, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Statute_of_Anne [wikipedia.org]
Note even back then the elected House of Commons was willing and intending to make copyright infinite and it was the unelected upper house that brought sanity to the table, a good example of why having an unelected upper house can be good.
Another thing of interest is that even then the publishers were screaming that it was for the authours even as their business plans were to make a small lump sum payment for rights and milk it forever.
Funny enough the UK now has infinite copyright for some works, Peter Pan is one though it is for a good cause, the copyright supports a childrens hospital. The King James Bible is another that is copyrighted forever in the UK. Can't have commoners repeating the lords word.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 19 2014, @11:12PM
In my submission, I suggested
from the I'm-really-liking-this-Kagan-chick dept.
-- gewg_