'Enola Holmes' Producers Go In Hard On Conan Doyle Estate In Motion To Dismiss Its Bullshit Lawsuit

Copyright

from the what's-up-holmes? dept

Over the summer, we wrote about a very strange lawsuit brought by the Estate of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle against Netflix and the makers of the forthcoming film Enola Holmes. What made much of this head-scratching is that the vast majority of ACD’s Sherlock Holmes works are old enough to have entered the public domain. In the lawsuit, the Estate points out that there are ten Sherlock stories that are not in the public domain, however. And that because the Holmes character in those stories is both more emotional and — checks notes — likes dogs, that somehow that makes any depiction of the Holmes character having emotions and liking dogs as somehow copyright infringement. Also, there is a trademark claim for using “Holmes” in the film’s title, which is dumb because it’s a work of art and the public domain character’s name being part of the film’s title is of artistic merit.

So let’s focus on the copyright claim, instead. Or, rather, let’s let the filmmaker’s motion to dismiss focus on it, so thoroughly did they excoriate the Estate. We’ll start with two claims made by the Estate as to protectable elements of the Holmes character: that the later works showed his warming relationship with his sidekick Watson and — checks notes again in disbelief — sigh, that he likes dogs. Well, the filmmakers suggest that those are sort of irrelevant since the film doesn’t depict Holmes interacting with either Watson or dogs.

Dr. Watson is not even a character in the Film. Accordingly, the Film does not develop Watson’s relationship with Sherlock Holmes and Watson does not remarry in the Film.

The Film does not show Sherlock interacting with dogs, and accordingly, does not demonstrate any “great interest” in dogs by Sherlock.

As such, the motion points out that the only relevant claim is on the emotional and demeanor traits the Estate claims are later protectable developments of the Holmes character. To succeed on this, the Estate would have to be able to demonstrate first that these are protectable elements for copyright and that those elements only appear in the later, not public domain Sherlock works. On the matter of whether emotions are somehow protectable, the motion points out that this goes against copyright’s idea/expression dichotomy.

It is a “fundamental tenet” of copyright law that “protection extends only to the author’s original expression and not to the ideas embodied in that expression.” – Gates Rubber Co. v. Bando Chem. Indus.).

See also 17 U.S.C. § 102(b) (“In no case does copyright protection for an original work for authorship extend to any idea … [or] concept… regardless of the form in which it is described, explained, illustrated, or embodied in suchwork”). As the Tenth Circuit has explained, courts “ must separate unprotected ideas from expression” because copyright law only protects “the ‘particularized expression’ of [an] idea,”and not the idea itself – Blehm v. Jacobs. See also Golan v. Gonzalez (original expressionin the literary context “refers to the particular pattern of words … that comprise a work”).

And that should be enough by itself to get this lawsuit tossed in the trash heap where it belongs. In case that doesn’t do the trick, the motion goes on to note that the very traits the Estate is wrongly claiming are protectable, namely a softer, kinder Sherlock Holmes, also happen to show up in earlier works now in the public domain. In all, the lawyers for the film provided six examples of Holmes exhibiting these traits in earlier, public domain works. To be honest, this whole thing might have been worth it if only so I could picture a bunch of lawyers pouring through old Sherlock Holmes stories and arguing over which ones showed the most emotional development.

But beyond that, this whole lawsuit is dumb and the court should dismiss it as requested.

Filed Under: arthur conan doyle, copyright, enola holmes, public domain, sherlock holmes