WASHINGTON — Sherlock Holmes will finally be released free to the American public in 2023.
Long-running disputed writings on Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s story of the whipsmart detective, as the 1927 copyright, which expires on January 1, includes Conan Doyle’s last Sherlock Holmes work. The rights dispute will finally come to an end.
In addition to the collection of short stories “The Case Files of Sherlock Holmes”, “To the Lighthouse” by Virginia Woolf, “Men Without Women” by Ernest Hemingway, “The Mosquito” by William Faulkner, and “The Mosquito” by Agatha Christie. There are books like The Big Four. Mysteries of Hercule Poirot — When the calendar turns to his 2023, it becomes public his domain.
Once a work is in the public domain, it can be legally shared, performed, reused, repurposed and sampled without permission or cost. Works after 1927 were originally supposed to be copyrighted for 75 years, but the Copyright Term Extension Act of 1998 delayed publication for an additional 20 years.
Many of the notable works on the list used the extra 20 years to make substantial profits for their copyright holders, but Duke University experts say that copyright protection is a “commercial practice.” It also applies to all works whose potential has long declined.
“For the vast majority (perhaps 99%) of the works after 1927, the copyright holder did not profit financially from continuing the copyright. Yet they remained off limits for no good reason. It was,” Jennifer Jenkins, director of the Center for Public Domain Research at Duke University, wrote in a blog post announcing “Public Domain Day 2023.”
Long U.S. copyright terms have long since lost many works that are now available because their legitimate owners weren’t profitable to keep them and couldn’t be used by others. Duke’s list includes “lost” films like Victor Fleming’s “The Way of All Flesh” and Tod Browning’s “London After Midnight.”
1927 marked the end of the silent film era with the release of the first “talkies” (films with spoken dialogue). It was “The Jazz Singer”, the first feature film in history to have synchronized dialogue, also infamous for Al Jolson’s blackface performances.
In addition to Alan Crosland’s films, Wings, directed by William A. Wellman and winner of the first Oscar for Outstanding Production, and Fritz Lang’s influential science fiction classic Metro Other movies, such as Police, are in the public domain.
The list includes the hit “Funny Face” from the Broadway musical, jazz standards by legends such as Louis Armstrong and Duke Ellington, and “Puttin’ on the Road” by Irving Berlin’s Howard Johnson, Billy Mohr and Robert A. King. Ritz” and “(I Scream You Scream, We All Scream for) Ice Cream”.
The Public Domain Center at Duke University emphasized that notable books, films, and musical works enter the public domain. This is just a few of the thousands that will be released in 2023.
— The Gangs of New York, by Herbert Asbury (original)
— Death Comes to the Archbishop, by Willa Cather
— The Big Four by Agatha Christie
— “The Tower Treasure”, the first Hardy Boys mystery by the pseudonym Franklin W. Dixon
— The Case Files of Sherlock Holmes, by Arthur Conan Doyle
— “Copper Sun” by County Cullen
— “Mosquito” by William Faulkner
— “Men Without Women” by Ernest Hemingway
— Steppenwolf by Hermann Hesse (German)
— “America” by Franz Kafka (German)
— “Now We Are Six” by AA Milne, illustrated by EH Shepard
— “Le Temps retrouvé” by Marcel Proust (French)
— Twilight Sleep by Edith Wharton
— Thornton Wilder, The Bridges of San Luis Rey
— To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf
— Seventh Heaven, directed by Frank Borsage
— “The Battle of the Century,” a Laurel and Hardy film directed by Clyde Bruckman
— “The Kid Brother,” directed by Ted Wilde
— The Jazz Singer, directed by Alan Crosland
— The Lodger: A Tale of the London Mist, directed by Alfred Hitchcock
— Metropolis, directed by Fritz Lang
— Sunrise, directed by FW Murnau
— Upstream, directed by John Ford
— Wings, directed by William A. Wellman
— “Back Water Blues”, “Preaching the Blues”, “Stupid Man’s Blues” (Bessie Smith)
— “The Best Things in Life Are Free” from the musical “Good News” (George Guard “Buddy” de Silva, Lou Brown, Ray Henderson)
— “Billy Goat Stomp”, “Hyena Stomp”, “Jungle Blues” (Ferdinand Joseph Morton)
— “Black and Tan Fantasy” and “East St. Louis Toodle-O” (Bab Miley, Duke Ellington)
— “Can’t Help Lovin’ Dut Man” and “All Man River” from the musical Show Boat (Oscar Hammerstein II, Jerome Kern)
— “Diane” (Erno Rapy, Liu Pollack)
— ‘Funny Face’ and ”S Wonderful’ from the musical ‘Funny Face’ (Ira & George Gershwin)
— “(I Scream You Scream, We All Scream for) Ice Cream” (Howard Johnson, Billy Maul, Robert A. King)
— “Mississippi Mud” (Harry Barris, James Kavanaugh)
— “My Blue Heaven” (George Whiting, Walter Donaldson)
— “Potato Head Blues” and Gully Lowe Blues” (Louis Armstrong)
— “Puttin’ on the Ritz” (Irving Berlin)
— “Rusty Pail Blues”, “Sloppy Water Blues”, “Sothin’ Syrup Stomp” (Thomas Waller)
