The image stereotype of the Sherlock Holmes character (Source: Culture Livresque)
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Few characters from modern literature pop up on cinema screens and TV sets as frequently as Sherlock Holmes does. Some observers have stated it more firmly. Christopher Redmond estimates that Sherlock Holmes is the most prolific screen character in the history of cinema (A Sherlock Holmes Handbook (1994)). Just how many different Sherlock Holmes screen adaptions have been made is too large and elusive a number to pin down accurately, but screen vehicles of Arthur Conan Doyle’s famous super-sleuth and Mensa-alumni certainly number in the hundreds✱.
(Photo: CrimeReads)
A publishing can of worms
When Arthur Conan Doyle (ACD) died in 1930 the author left his literary works in Trust to his widow (Jean Conan Doyle) and immediate family. But in excluding his daughter Mary from his first marriage, ACD opened the door to an ongoing family rift, decades of squabbles, strife and litigation by his heirs, descendants and their spouses.
As the intra-family ‘Barney’ over who controls the copyright to the Sherlock Holmes works deepened, the imbroglio entangled an investment company specifically set up to manage the windfall (aptly named “Baskervilles Investments”) and even the Royal Bank of Scotland (‘History of the Sir Arthur Conan Doyle Copyrights’, (2015), www.arthurconandoyle.com).
The upshot of the kerfuffle was that each of the competing parties claimed to be the rightful holder of the rights to ACD’s literary estate, and then attempted to sell it notwithstanding the prevailing uncertainty over ownership. American TV producer-director Sheldon Reynolds acquired a licence from two of Arthur’s sons to make a Sherlock Holmes series in the 1950s. When, 20 years later, Reynolds tried to get a licence for a follow-up series on TV, he found that the legal landscape had changed. The rights were now held by the Royal Bank of Scotland who had acquired them after the previous owner defaulted on a loan. Eventually, with funds provided by his Pfizer heiress mother-in-law, Reynolds secured the rights to the Holmes stories.
Andréa Plunket (Source: goodreads.com)
Culture of litigation
Since 1990 the main battle for control of the copyrights has pitted Reynolds’s ex-wife, Hungarian-born heiress Andréa Milos (née Reynolds, née Plunket) versus the Conan Doyle Estate and others. Plunket has doggedly claimed to hold the rights to the name “Sherlock Holmes” and the stories, despite a lack of legal support for the claims. Lawsuits were exchanged between her and the Estate. Plunket also threatened to sue the BBC over its Sherlock television series for allegedly infringing ‘her’ trademarks (‘The Scandalous Sherlock Holmes Copyright Issue’, Mattias Boström, I Hear of Sherlock Everywhere, 30-Jul-2015, www.ihearofsherlock.com).
The Sir Arthur Conan Doyle Estate for its part has been particularly litigious in defence of its literary legacy. The Estate has consistently striven to maintain water-tight control over both the Sherlock Holmes stories and the characters. In 2013 it demanded author Leslie S Klinger pay a fee to license the Sherlock character for an anthology he was planning to do. Klinger’s response was to sue the Estate on the basis that most of the Sherlock material was in the public domain. In court the judge upheld Klinger’s position, while reaffirming that some late works were still covered under copyright (‘Sherlock Holmes Copyright: An overview’, Brogan Woodburn, www.redpoints.com). In 2020 it sued Netflix over its upcoming film Enola Holmes. The grounds? The film apparently depicts Holmes as having emotions and respecting women. This, the Estate contends, breaches Conan Doyle’s copyright (‘Lawsuit over ‘warmer’ Sherlock depicted in Enola Holmes dismissed’, Alison Flood, The Guardian, 22-Dec-2020, www.theguardian.com).
‘The Red-Headed League’ story (Golden Press edition, 1963)
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End-note: An additional complication over the Holmes copyright issue is a demarcation between the UK and US laws. In the UK copyright lasts for 70 years after an author’s death (in Conan Doyle’s case, the copyright expired in 2000). Conversely in the USA some copyrights extend for 95 years from the date of the work’s first publication⍟. This has proved a stumbling block for TV series and film-makers trying to adapt one of the Sherlock stories in recent years (‘Sherlock Holmes And His “Copyrighted Emotions”‘, Copyright House, 28-Sep-2020, www.copyrighthouse.org).
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✱ including works for film, music, radio, stage, video games, there are over 25,000 products that are related to the famous detective (Woodburn)
⍟ the last of ACD’s published work expires in 2023