The Economist | Feb 20, 2013
“LESLIE KLINGER knows more about Sherlock Holmes than nearly any other living scholar. Among his two-dozen books about the fictional detective is the exhaustive “The New Annotated Sherlock Holmes”, which offers notes on the four novels and 56 stories written about Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.
But when it comes to imagining new adventures for the London-based Holmes, Mr Klinger has run into trouble. At issue is a new compilation of Holmes-derived stories which Mr Klinger has edited with Laurie King, a mystery novelist. Conan Doyle’s heirs claim that they have the right to extract license fees or suppress publication. Mr Klinger has responded by filing a lawsuit in a federal court in Chicago, arguing that he has not infringed copyright as the content in question is now in the public domain.”
For more on the story see: http://www.economist.com/blogs/prospero/2013/02/public-domain