logo
Public Domain 2023
ASSOCIATED PRESS

2023 public domain debuts include last Sherlock Holmes work

Sherlock Holmes is finally free to the American public in 2023

By AP News
Published - Dec 30, 2022, 10:39 AM ET
Last Updated - Jun 23, 2023, 04:17 AM EDT

WASHINGTON (AP) — Sherlock Holmes is finally free to the American public in 2023.

The long-running contested copyright dispute over Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's tales of a whipsmart detective — which has even ensnared Enola Holmes — will finally come to an end as the 1927 copyrights expiring Jan. 1 include Conan Doyle's last Sherlock Holmes work.

Alongside the short-story collection “The Case-Book of Sherlock Holmes," books such as Virginia Woolf's “To The Lighthouse,” Ernest Hemingway's “Men Without Women,” William Faulkner's "Mosquitoes" and Agatha Christie's “The Big Four” — an Hercule Poirot mystery — will become public domain as the calendar turns to 2023.

Once a work enters the public domain it can legally be shared, performed, reused, repurposed or sampled without permission or cost. The works from 1927 were originally supposed to be copyrighted for 75 years, but the 1998 Copyright Term Extension Act delayed opening them up for an additional 20 years.

Our Offices
  • 10kInfo, Inc.
    13555 SE 36th St
    Bellevue, WA 98006
  • 10kInfo Data Solutions, Pvt Ltd.
    Claywork Create
    11 km, Arakere Bannerghatta Rd, Omkar Nagar, Arekere,
    Bengaluru, Karnataka 560076
4.2 12182024