The copyrights for the Sherlock Holmes stories expired in 1980 in Canada and in 2000 in the United

Kingdom. In the United States, the only Sherlock Holmes works protected by copyrights are portions
of The Case Book. Three of the stories, published in 1921 through 1923, are already in the public
domain; the rest will enter the public domain in various years leading up to 2023. A legal challenge
that would have invalidated a 1998 extension to the length of copyright putting Sherlock Holmes
into the public domain immediately was thrown out by the Supreme Court January 15, 2003.
[1]

The American copyrights are owned by Conan Doyle Estate Ltd. The American agent for
administering them, and related rights in the Sherlock Holmes character, is Jon Lellenberg
(Hazelbaker & Lellenberg, PO Box 32181, Santa Fe, New Mexico 87594),
JonLellenberg@gmail.com. The British agent is Robert Kirby of United Agents (12-26 Lexington
Street, London W1F 0LE), rkirby@unitedagents.co.uk. The Estate has a web page setting out its
views about other claimants to those rights. For background, see a note by Peter Blau, January
2011.
[2]

As 2013 came to an end, the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois handed
down a ruling about copyright protection, not for the stories themselves, but for the characters of
Holmes and Watson. The defendant in the case was the Conan Doyle Estate Ltd. The plaintiff was
well-known Sherlockian editor, and Los Angeles entertainment lawyer, Leslie S. Klinger. In the case
of Klinger vs. Conan Doyle Estate Ltd., the court ruled that the Holmes and Watson characters as
described in the "story elements" that stem from most of the stories those published before 1923
are in the public domain.
Klinger's website
Conan Doyle Estate's response Appeal documents
Interpretation by lawyer Betsy Rosenblatt
[3]

The original title, "Reminiscences of Mr. Sherlock Holmes", was to be for occasional tales to "reflect
particular concerns of Conan Doyle beyond exciting whodunit plots ... exploring changes in the
modern world". The first Reminiscence about Wisteria Lodge, "a dictator who has ruined a small
country", fictionalizes his later "blistering indictment of the Belgian treatment of the people of the
Congo".
[4]

The Case-Book contains three stories not narrated by Dr. Watson, as most Sherlock Holmes stories
are. "The Adventure of the Mazarin Stone" is narrated in the third person, since it was adapted from
a stage play in which Watson hardly appeared. "The Adventure of the Blanched Soldier" and "The
Adventure of the Lion's Mane" are both narrated by Holmes himself, the latter being set after
his retirement.
Although some of the stories are comparable with Doyle's earlier work, this collection is often
considered a lesser entry in the Sherlock Holmes canon. David Stuart Davies has commented that
"The Adventure of the Creeping Man" "veers towards risible science fiction"; in the 1974 novel The
Seven-Per-Cent Solution, author Nicholas Meyer's Watson claims that this entry, as well as three
others from the Case-Book ("The Mazarin Stone", "The Three Gables" and "The Lion's Mane"), are
forged "drivel". Kyle Freeman also suggests that "The Mazarin Stone" and "The Three Gables" may
not be Conan Doyle's work, stating that "[a]lmost nothing about either of "The Mazarin Stone" or
"The Three Gables" has the true ring of Conan Doyle's style about them."
[5]

References[edit]
1. Jump up^ "Copyright Notes on the ownership of the Sherlock Holmes stories". Sherlockian.Net.
Retrieved June 20, 2014.
2. Jump up^ "Copyright Notes on the ownership of the Sherlock Holmes stories". Sherlockian.Net.
Retrieved March 3, 2014.
3. Jump up^ "Copyright". Sherlockian.Net. Retrieved 2014-03-03.
4. Jump up^ Freeman, Kyle Freeman. "Introduction". The Complete Sherlock Holmes 2:
27. ISBN 978-1-59308-040-2.
5. Jump up^ Freeman, Kyle. "Introduction". The Complete Sherlock Holmes 2: 35. ISBN 978-1-
59308-040-2.
External links[edit]
The Complete Sherlock Holmes at Google Play Store
Texts[edit]
Texts in Wikisource[edit]
Texts on Wikisource:

"The Adventure of the Mazarin Stone"
"The Problem of Thor Bridge"
Full text in Wikilivres[edit]
The Casebook of Sherlock Holmes
Wikilivres is hosted in Canada, where the full book is already out of copyright.