Swanpride wrote:
Shouldn't the ten stories left become part of the free domain soon, even following the american copyright?
It's 95 years if the copyright was renewed, which it must have been (or it would have expired after 28 years). It looks like the last were published in 1927, so there's about 9 years left (unless Congress extends the copyright term again).
I had no idea anyone still held rights to Sherlock Holmes. I can see it in Tolkien's case, in which his son Christopher has done so much to bring Tolkien's unpublished work to print and has truly (and literally, in 'The Silmarillion' and 'The Children of Hurin') expanded upon the copyright he inherited. (His nephew Michael is now doing some work on Tolkien's papers, I believe.) Most copyright inheritors are just sitting on a lucky bit of fortune, however. I don't know enough about ACD to say whether they've done much with the copyright other than to profit from it.
