Sherlock Holmes' works will become public property in 2023

This weekend, some major cultural artifacts are set to join the public domain. According to the Center for the Study of the Public Domain at Duke University School of Law, 2023 will mark the end of U.S. copyright protection for Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s final Sherlock Holmes stories, as well as the groundbreaking sci-fi film Metropolis, Virginia Woolf’s To The Lighthouse, and the first complete “talkie” film, The Jazz Singer.

Intellectual property that enters the public domain can be redistributed, remixed or remade by anyone without the rights holder's permission, often long after the original author has died.

Over the past few years, it has enabled many classic works to be reinterpreted, with The Great Gatsby, for example, entering the public domain in 2021.

The Duke brief notes that the public domain allows cultural archivists to freely preserve or redistribute works that might otherwise be lost to history, such as a large number of silent films, including "Metropolis," whose copyright expires this year.

The expiration of Sherlock Holmes' copyright marks the end of a long legal debate over how copyright law should treat the character. Conan Doyle's early works had been in the public domain before 2019, but the author's estate believed that the control should not be relaxed, which has led to multiple legal disputes over unauthorized new Holmes stories, including Netflix's previous "Miss Holmes" lawsuit, which was eventually resolved by settlement. Starting next year, everyone will be free to create a new interpretation of Holmes.

Also next year there will be another big star entering the public domain: Mickey Mouse.