It is not difficult to understand why someone would want to extend the copyright of their work. Whether it be for financial gain or to protect their creations image for as long as possible, many creators have valid reasons for wanting to keep their works out of the public domain. Unfortunately, the root of their argument remains baseless in American copyright law. These ideas were discussed in Betsy Rosenblatt's presentation "Legal Uncertainty and Eternal Life" which detailed a case study of the Sherlock Holmes copyright and how the owner created a seemingly perpetual copyright.
The dispute started when Conan Doyle's estate sent a cease and desist to a publisher that planned to release a Sherlock Holmes anthology of the works already in the public domain. The Doyle estate argued that copyrightable elements still existed because the final ten books are still protected under copyright law. Their lawsuit revolved around the idea of "incremental expression," where characters change as more works are created. The…show more content… A tangible danger exists with the creation of ostensibly eternal copyright protection. It directly clashes with the constitutional requirement of a public domain. Specifically, how it allows "for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries." (U.S. Const. art. I, ยง 8, cl. 8) Rosenblatt also explained the ramifications of secondary meanings by recounting when the George Orwell estate took down a t-shirt with the text "1984 is already here" on the grounds that they had never licensed merchandise before. The creator of the shirt was served with a copyright takedown notice, though the word "1984" is not copyrightable. As noted previously, copyright holders of well known works simply threaten legal action against a creator to stop making use of content even vaguely associated with their work. High costs of going to court scares
