Tuesday, August 16, 2005  Detective work on the Sherlock
copyright issue  On 8 August I wrote about a modern book
featuring Sherlock Holmes, and noted (not for the first time)
that the copyright of Conan Doyle's work(s) was a murky area,
one which the wise person would stay well out of. Ditto for
writing novels featuring the characters of any other writer
whose work is still in copyright.  I had also written about the
Conan Doyle copyright on 8 July, in the context of a wider
discussion of the extent to which copyright prevents or allows
the use of copyright characters in sequels or spinoffs; and that
post recently attracted a comment from Darlene Cypser.  Darlene
is a US attorney (among other things) who seems to be unusually
well informed on the subject, so I have fished out her comment,
lest it get overlooked, and reproduce it below. I finish off
with a few comments of my own.  Here is what Darlene had to say:
I don't know enough about UK copyrights to agree or disagree
with Ms Solomon's assessment of law