WASHINGTON ā Sherlock Holmes is finally free to the American public in 2023.
The long-running contested copyright dispute over Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's tales of a whipsmart detective ā which has even ensnared Enola Holmes ā will finally come to an end as the 1927 copyrights expiring Jan. 1 include Conan Doyle's last Sherlock Holmes work.
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Alongside the short-story collection āThe Case-Book of Sherlock Holmes," books such as Virginia Woolf's āTo The Lighthouse,ā Ernest Hemingway's āMen Without Women,ā William Faulkner's "Mosquitoes" and Agatha Christie's āThe Big Fourā ā an Hercule Poirot mystery ā will become public domain as the calendar turns to 2023.
Once a work enters the public domain it can legally be shared, performed, reused, repurposed or sampled without permission or cost. The works from 1927 were originally supposed to be copyrighted for 75 years, but the 1998 Copyright Term Extension Act delayed opening them up for an additional 20 years.
While many prominent works on the list used those extra two decades to earn their copyright holders good money, a Duke University expert says the copyright protections also applied to āall of the works whose commercial viability had long subsided.ā
āFor the vast majorityāprobably 99%āof works from 1927, no copyright holder financially benefited from continued copyright. Yet they remained off limits, for no good reason,ā Jennifer Jenkins, director of Dukeās Center for the Study of the Public Domain, wrote in a blog post heralding "Public Domain Day 2023."
That long U.S. copyright period meant many works that would now become available have long since been lost, because they were not profitable to maintain by the legal owners, but couldnāt be used by others. On the Duke list are such ālostā films like Victor Fleming's āThe Way of All Fleshā and Tod Browning's āLondon After Midnight.ā
1927 portended the silent film era's end with the release of the first ātalkieā ā a film with dialogue in it. That was āThe Jazz Singer,ā the historic first feature-length film with synchronized dialogue also notorious for Al Jolson's blackface performance.
In addition to the Alan Crosland-directed film, other movies like āWingsā ā directed by William A. Wellman and the āoutstanding productionā winner at the very first Oscars ā and Fritz Lang's seminal science-fiction classic āMetropolisā will enter the public domain.
Musical compositions ā the music and lyrics found on sheet music, not the sound recordings ā on the list include hits from Broadway musicals like āFunny Faceā and jazz standards from the likes of legends like Louis Armstrong and Duke Ellington, in addition to Irving Berlin's āPuttin' on the Ritzā and ā(I Scream You Scream, We All Scream for) Ice Creamā by Howard Johnson, Billy Moll and Robert A. King.
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Duke's Center for the Public Domain highlighted notable books, movies and musical compositions entering the public domain ā just a fraction of the thousands due to be unleashed in 2023.
BOOKS
ā āThe Gangs of New York,ā by Herbert Asbury (original publication)
ā āDeath Comes for the Archbishop,ā by Willa Cather
ā āThe Big Four,ā by Agatha Christie
ā āThe Tower Treasure,ā the first Hardy Boys mystery by the pseudonymous Franklin W. Dixon
ā āThe Case-Book of Sherlock Holmes,ā by Arthur Conan Doyle
ā āCopper Sun,ā by Countee Cullen
ā āMosquitoes,ā by William Faulkner
ā āMen Without Women,ā by Ernest Hemingway
ā āDer Steppenwolf,ā by Herman Hesse (in German)
ā āAmerika," by Franz Kafka (in German)
ā āNow We Are Six,ā by A.A. Milne with illustrations from E.H. Shepard
ā āLe Temps retrouvĆ©,ā by Marcel Proust (in French)
ā āTwilight Sleep,ā by Edith Wharton
ā āThe Bridge of San Luis Rey,ā by Thornton Wilder
ā āTo The Lighthouse,ā by Virginia Woolf
MOVIES
ā ā7th Heaven,ā directed by Frank Borzage
ā āThe Battle of the Century,ā a Laurel and Hardy film directed by Clyde Bruckman
ā āThe Kid Brother,ā directed by Ted Wilde
ā āThe Jazz Singer,ā directed by Alan Crosland
ā āThe Lodger: A Story of the London Fog,ā directed by Alfred Hitchcock
ā āMetropolis,ā directed by Fritz Lang
ā āSunrise,ā directed by F.W. Murnau
ā āUpstream,ā directed by John Ford
ā āWings,ā directed by William A. Wellman
MUSICAL COMPOSITIONS
ā āBack Water Blues,ā āPreaching the Bluesā and āFoolish Man Bluesā (Bessie Smith)
ā āThe Best Things in Life Are Free,ā from the musical āGood Newsā (George Gard āBuddyā De Sylva, Lew Brown, Ray Henderson)
ā āBilly Goat Stomp,ā āHyena Stompā and āJungle Bluesā (Ferdinand Joseph Morton)
ā āBlack and Tan Fantasyā and āEast St. Louis Toodle-Oā (Bub Miley, Duke Ellington)
ā āCanāt Help Lovinā Dat Manā and āOlā Man River,ā from the musical āShow Boatā (Oscar Hammerstein II, Jerome Kern)
ā āDianeā (Erno Rapee, Lew Pollack)
ā āFunny Faceā and āāS Wonderful,ā from the musical āFunny Faceā (Ira and George Gershwin)
ā ā(I Scream You Scream, We All Scream for) Ice Creamā (Howard Johnson, Billy Moll, Robert A. King)
ā āMississippi Mudā (Harry Barris, James Cavanaugh)
ā āMy Blue Heavenā (George Whiting, Walter Donaldson)
ā āPotato Head Blues" and Gully Low Bluesā (Louis Armstrong)
ā āPuttinā on the Ritzā (Irving Berlin)
ā āRusty Pail Blues,ā āSloppy Water Bluesā and āSoothinā Syrup Stompā (Thomas Waller)