"It is the season of forgiveness." [BLUE]
#FreeSherlock judgment was all over the news, The Grand Game trading card project sets up a Kickstarter page, Sherlock Holmes meets Doctor Who, commemorating Blue Carbuncle Day, an issue of The Solar Pons Gazette appears after a five-year hiatus, a new online collection of Sherlockian essays, the British Library shares over one million public domain images, why you should love Sherlock, a controversy sparked during a pre-screening of "The Empty Hearse," what happens when 12 Sherlockians get together online to collaborate on a pastiche, a list of 99 Sherlock-related books, Season 3 of BBC's Sherlock premiered in the UK and more in the final Weekly Sherlock Links Compendium of 2013 by Matt Laffey.
Free Sherlock vs Sherlock Copyright Holders - known legally as "Leslie S. Klinger vs Conan Doyle Estate, Ltd." - has come to a conclusion after 10 months of legal wrangling, acrimonious message board rants and a fair amount of amateur legal speculation one might expect from an intellectual property case lodged at the intersection of internet pop culture and a long and storied history of copyright controversy. Perhaps the most news worthy Sherlockian story to appear in the final days of 2013 (if you don't count that 'other' piece of news about the air dates for a certain Holmes adaptation featuring a certain dreamy Sherlock), it's a tangled skein best left to the experts to interpret and explain. From FreeSherlock:
"The ruling is a victory for the plaintiff Leslie S. Klinger, who sought to establish that the Estate was wrong in claiming that no new stories could be written about Holmes or Watson without the Estate’s permission. “Sherlock Holmes belongs to the world,” Klinger said. “This ruling clearly establishes that. Whether it’s a re-imagining in modern dress (like the BBC’s Sherlock or CBS-TV’s Elementary), vigorous interpretations like the Warner Bros. fine Sherlock Holmes films, or new stories by countless authors inspired by the characters, people want to celebrate Holmes and Watson. Now they can do so without fear of suppression by Conan Doyle’s heirs.”"You can read a PDF of the entire "Order on the Motion for Summary Judgment" which may sound kind of boring, but out of all the material that's available online regarding Klinger vs Estate, this will give you the best sense of 1) what the actual dispute is about and what it is not about, 2) what Klinger and ACD Estate agree on, 3) what Klinger and Estate do not agree on, 4) why Klinger thinks 'elements' from post-1923 stories are not protected, 5) why the judge thinks Klinger is wrong on #4 because what Klinger calls "elements" are in fact protected as characters, plots, etc. and 6) what some of the implications are for authors and publishers.
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| [Plaintiff Les Klinger in his LA law office surrounded by the spoils of a life dedicated to the Great Detective. When not annotating things or attempting to thwart copyright laws Klinger is an attorney in California and I sometimes wonder if new clients of his, encountering an office packed with Sherlockiana, are instilled with extreme confidence (e.g. Sherlock Holmes was like a giant brain so my attorney must be a giant brain!) or extreme concern (e.g. when does this guy have time to work on lawyer stuff?).] |
Counsel for the Conan Doyle Estate Ltd. Benjamin Allison reacted and interpreted the ruling a bit differently than Klinger in "Ruling Continues to Protect Much of Sherlock Holmes's Character; Conan Doyle Estate Considers Appeal" pointing out that
"under the current ruling from the Chicago trial court, all development of the Holmes and Watson characters by Sir Arthur in ten post-1922 stories remain fully protected by copyright. These ten stories - set at a variety of earlier points in the two men's fictional lives - contain significant elements of both characters, including Sherlock Holmes's mellowing personality, the change in Holmes’s and Watson's relationship from flatmates and collaborators to closest friends, and a host of other developments, skills, and elements of background. While plaintiff Leslie Klinger sought a ruling that some of these character traits were free for all to use, the Court rejected Mr. Klinger's effort in this regard and held that all such characteristics of Holmes and Watson are protected."Allison makes an interesting point that helps frame the scope of why any of this actually matters:
"Nearly a third of the stories in Mr. Klinger's first co-edited story collection, A Study in Sherlock, use protected post-1922 story elements. That book's publisher, Random House, appropriately entered into a modest licensing arrangement with the Estate despite Mr. Klinger’s position against such a license. Mr. Klinger did not provide his second story collection to the Estate, but one of the writers for that new collection told the Estate he wished to use a protected character, Langdale Pike, from the post-1922 stories. The Chicago Court reiterated that the character is fully protected by copyright law."If I was a rumor mongering blogger-type I might mention something like: rumor has it that the catalyst for the entire copyright hullabaloo was a casual mention of Langdale Pike...and the rest is legal history.
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| [Peter Wyngarde as Langdale Pike in the Granada adaptation of "The Three Gables."] |
Betsy Rosenblatt posted an essay on the Baker Street Babes website exploring some of the real-world implications of the #FreeSherlock ruling in "What does the Free Sherlock ruling mean for fans?" I encourage anyone unclear about various aspects of this case and/or anyone interested in reading a fascinating enumeration of the more pragmatic ins and outs of the case. My personal favorite bit in Rosenblatt's essay concerns a Canonical point the judge got wrong, which also illustrates a bit about the limitations of the ruling (in both directions):
"Keen Sherlockian eyes will observe that the judge got one point factually wrong: Sherlock Holmes’ retirement was first described in "His Last Bow" (one of the public domain stories), not the 1926 "The Adventure of the Lion’s Mane". What does that factual error mean for fans? Probably not much, since this factual finding won’t bind future courts. Based on the legal principle articulated in the case, Holmes’s retirement to the South Downs, on a small farm among his bees and books, including The Practical Handbook of Bee Culture, with some Observations upon the Segregation of the Queen, are in the public domain - but the details of his retirement setting, and (of course) the storyline of "The Lion’s Mane", are still protected."If you're still having difficulty explaining the finer points of Klinger vs ACD Estate to your friend who keeps on asking whether or not he can start writing a Fifty Shades of Grey-Sherlock parody, see the NY Times article "Sherlock Holmes Is in the Public Domain, American Judge Rules" (with accompanying Frederic Dorr Steele illustration) for further analysis.
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| [Sadly, your other friend's slash fanfic featuring Sherlock and the jellyfish from LION cannot be published in the U.S.A. without paying a fee to the Conan Doyle Estate until 2022.] |
I Hear of Sherlock Everywhere, on a related #FreeSherlock note, released a special podcast episode of IHOSE covering the Klinger vs Conan Doyle Estate, Ltd. ruling featuring interviews with the plaintiff himself Les Klinger as well as IP Law scholar and noted Sherlockian Betsy Rosenblatt (BSI, ASH):
"We were once again joined by Les, who outlined the background of the case and discussed some of the legal aspects of copyright that have led us to this juncture. We try to keep the discussion as interesting as possible for the lay people out there, and Les even manages to bring in the 1902 coronation of Edward VII as part of the case law history....[and] Betsy touches on some additional points that will undoubtedly be of interest."Instead of ending the show with a relevant Baker Street Journal 'Editor's Gas-Lamp' Scott and Burt read from the late Joseph Merriam's musings on "the impact of the legal profession within the Sherlock Holmes stories, citing six separate examples of the law and lawyers within the Canon." Originally presented at a Spring 1992 meeting of The Speckled Band of Boston, Merriam's essay is available online as a handwritten document titled "Impact of the Law on the Sherlock Holmes Stories" and is a hoot to read.
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| [A scene from The Coronation of Edward VII (1902), a short film by George Méliès and Charles Urban which reenacts the coronation of King Edward VII and Queen Alexandra. Watch the short film in its entirety here. ] |
The Grand Game, the fan-inspired Sherlockian trading card project first announced here in October, is close to completion but needs your assistance! "With your help we can move this project to the final stages. We have been able to develop and design the first set of the cards honoring the fans of Sherlock Holmes. It is our hope that it will be the first of many sets to come." Collectors interested in the project might consider donating at the $150 level for which they'll receive a Hobby Box (10 packs of cards) of The Grand Game - Sherlock Holmes Trading Cards w/ one box redemption (a $200 value). There's also an accompanying eight minute video narrated by the creator of the card project, second generation Sherlockian Brian Rogers, which explains the history and philosophy behind The Grand Game Trading Cards, a myriad of gorgeous artwork examples and details on how you can help. To learn more about the project itself, read through the Kickstarter page and check out The Grand Game on Facebook and follow their Twitter for updates and special offers.
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| [Les Klinger's trading card from The Grand Game, Series One.] |
Sherlock Meets the Doctor (released December 11, 2013 and first covered on these pages on December 12), the fan mashup video sensation released which brilliantly and seamlessly merged footage from BBC Sherlock and Doctor Who (Matt Smith), was all the rage this December garnering attention from sites as diverse as the Huffington Post to Yahoo TV to Tor as well as pretty much every Sherlock and Doctor Who blog in existence, winning almost unanimous support from both fandoms, as the Internet seemed to shout in unison "Best Fan Video Ever!", an assessment that's pretty close to the mark. If you're interested in how the video was created as well as a look at the original shots used, see Wholock - VFX Breakdown.
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| [Sherlock Holmes + Doctor Who = Look out all time and space!!] |
Dan Andriacco celebrates that most Sherlockian-specific of holidays, Blue Carbuncle Day, better known as "the second day after Christmas"[BLUE]. In "Saving Mr Baker" Andriacco muses "Do you ever wonder what happened between Mr. Henry Baker and his wife after he walked off the pages of "The Blue Carbuncle" with his replacement goose?" I'll see Andriacco's question and raise him another one: Do you ever wonder what happened to the upper-attendant of the Hotel Cosmopolitan, hapless schlemiel Mr. James Ryder, the de facto villain of the piece. Ryder is systematically tracked down by Holmes, lured to 221B and then cajoled into a confession, only to then throw himself upon Holmes' mercy. Following one of the most pathetic scenes in the Canon (cf. Paget illustration below) Holmes, ostensibly moved by "the season of forgiveness," pardons Ryder. Immediately following Ryder's departure, good old predictable Watson expresses his middle class outrage at Holmes (once again) taking the law into his own hands, only to be appeased by Holmes' 'jailbird for life' explanation - an explanation I've always found questionable in light of one, it's rather loose logic and two, Holmes' earlier stressing of "the season of forgiveness". In short, I've always thought this scene is one of the greatest counter examples to the argument that Holmes is nothing but "the most perfect reasoning and observing machine".
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| ["Ryder threw himself down suddenly upon the rug and clutched at my companion’s knees. “For God’s sake, have mercy!” he shrieked. “Think of my father! of my mother! It would break their hearts. I never went wrong before! I never will again. I swear it. I’ll swear it on a Bible. Oh, don’t bring it into court! For Christ’s sake, don’t!”" (BLUE).] |
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| [Back from a five year hiatus, The Solar Pons Gazette is the official newsletter of www.SolarPons.com (to be relaunched soon), both of which are maintained and edited by longtime Ponsian Mr Bob Byrne.] |
Diogenes Club Library, a new concept/project from Ross K. Foad of No Place Like Holmes, seeks to be "the reading room of the site and houses an easy to navigate place for the essays NPLH has published so far (including all of Howards Ostrom's 'Silent Doyle' essays mentioned previously on Always1895). Ross K is actively seeking scholars and enthusiasts alike who might be interested in seeing work of their own on a larger platform in submitting essays for consideration at moment." Foad's project has all the makings of an excellent online Sherlockian resource that will benefit Holmes fans of all persuasions.
The British Library announcement that they've uploaded "one million public domain scans from 17th-19th century books to Flickr! They're embarking on an ambitious programme to crowdsource novel uses and navigation tools for the huge corpus. Already, the manifest of image descriptions is available through Github." I've ran a few preliminary searches and since most of the scans are from books that pre-date the publication of A Study in Scarlet there's not much in the way of Sherlock Holmes or ACD material beyond The Strand and Sidney Paget illustrations from The Adventures and The Memoirs but I'm sure the corpus will provide plenty of excellent and useful material one might use for a variety of research projects.
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| [Image taken from page 133 of Cook's Handbook for London, just one of the million pictures available for free from the British Library corpus.] |
5 Reasons Why You Should Love Sherlock video put together by Kristina of the Baker Street Babes celebrates the very imminent return of BBC Sherlock. Lyndsay Faye and an assortment of other Babes assist Kristina in reviewing just why you should love the Great Detective: "From canonical references to otterlock, it has it all.".
Doyleockian reports on events surrounding the pre-screening of "The Empty Hearse" on December 15, 2013 at the BFI in London - an event that will be remembered for time immemorial (or at least for another Internet cycle or two) for igniting a controversy based not on the audience's reaction to the BBC Sherlock Season 3 premiere, but for a series of comments made /questions asked by one of the Q & A hosts, Caitlan Moran. London Reviews covers the entire 'story' but the gist of it seems to be that Moran, who was supposed to be moderating the panel by asking questions related to the episode just watched, asked a set of silly, rude and unrelated questions and then proceeded to read aloud an example of Sherlock fanfiction she found 'funny' - without the permission of the author whose thoughts on Morangate can be read here - but turned out to be ultra explicit making the crowd and panel (Cumberbatch, Moffat, etc.) uncomfortable. As you might expect, Twitter and other Sherlock fandom frequented social media sites reacted immediately and throughout the next few days. A few days later Alistair Duncan followed up his original post with some comments about the 'Morangate' fallout, and that's about all there is worth reporting. Make of this what you will. In the grand scheme of Sherlockian things happening over the next month or two it's just an insignificant Internet blip that is sure to be overshadowed and then forgotten.
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| [Q & A panel at the BFI pre-screening of The Empty Hearse.] |
Girl Meets Sherlock, a blog by Amy Thomas, posted "2013: Sherlockian Year in Review" featuring personal Sherlockian highlights including the publication of her second pastiche The Detective, The Woman and The Winking Tree on MX and her one year anniversary as a Baker Street Babe as well as general Sherlockian fun such as 221B Con and Save Undershaw with a last minute inclusion of The Adventure of the Crowd-Sourced Adventure (cf. next entry) which occurred in the last days of 2013.
The Adventure of the Crowd-Sourced Adventure, written via Facebook in a two-hour period on December 29, 2013, is a collaborative effort by the following group of Sherlockians: Susan Bailey, C. A. Brown, Lindsay Colwell, Eva Garcia, Elinor Hickey, Jennifer Ribble Jones, Jaime Mahoney, Trix Middlekauff, Chris Redmond, Amy Thomas, Ray Wilcockson and Vincent W. Wright. "The waning days of December 1895 brought with them one of the most remarkable and yet untold cases in Sherlock Holmes's career, which began one cold, foggy evening as I was preparing to depart the consulting-room of my medical practice and was startled by an unexpected knock on the door...." You can read the entire text at Sherlockian.net.
MX Publishing's owner Steve Emecz's collected his 99 favorite Sherlock-related books, which are all available on Amazon, and displayed the front covers via his Pinterest page. On a related note, Steve and his wife have spent their Christmas holiday in Kenya researching a book on a project called 'Happy Life':
"an ambitious project in Kenya that has already saved and had adopted over 160 abandoned children from the slums of Nairobi. The Happy Life Story book will share the success of the program and be a great resource for prospective adoptive parents full of case studies and information on how the project has grown...And of course we’ll make sure that there will be plenty of Sherlock Holmes books for the older children…."Check out their Kickstarter page for details.
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| [My favorite 2013 MX Publishing release: The Lighter Side of Sherlock Holmes: The Sherlockian Artwork of Norman Schatell edited by Glenn Schatell.] |
BBC Sherlock Series 3 (Spoiler-Free) Links:
BBC One, as every Sherlockian fan in the universe is now aware, announced at long last the air dates for "The Empty Hearse," the Season 3 premier of Sherlock. On January 1, 2014 at 8:00 pm GMT, viewers in the UK get to find out just how Sherlock survived the plunge off the roof of St. Barts, but North American fans will have to wait until January 19, 2014 when the episode officially airs on BBC America and PBS. By the time you're reading this, "The Empty Hearse" will have already aired in the UK - hence available online for those with the ability and moral laxness to download TV shows illegally - but I've held off including any information in this post about the episode so as not to ruin any surprises or reveal any spoilers for those waiting to watch on Sunday, January 19th (which happens to be the final day of the BSI Weekend 2014 in NYC).
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| [#SherlockLives!] |
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| [Where in the world is Sherlock Holmes?] |
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