Interesting. I imagine then that books that put characters like Sherlock Holmes together with Dracula or Mr. Hyde are only possible then because the estate of A.C. Doyle allows such works to be published. Or maybe due to the fact the books are PD some leeway exists.Either way it does sound like a legal quagmire best avoided if possible.
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Originally Posted by astrangerhere
Fanfiction in and of itself is a very odd animal. Alot of different things come into play when determining whether or not any fanfiction is legal, leaving aside the issue of heirs. But for things like Baum or Stoker, those works are no longer protected by copyright and therefore those characters are available for all to freely use (see the Sense and Sensibilty and Sea Monsters and other books like that for examples).
But lets take for example something that actually happened - in the 90s, Fox Broadcasting tried to stop the posting of X-Files related fanfiction. They were sending C&Ds on the basis of copyright. But because fanfic authors in no way make money off their fic, the attempt failed. But as a result, you always see a standard disclaimer on fanfic now ("the show is property of, etc etc").
As to an heirs rights to "publish" via posting that sort of work posthumously, it depends. If there were instructions about what should be done with all papers, documents etc., the courts would view drafts on a computer as documents. But as you cannot profit from fanfic, this really would not be likely to come up. Now if you found a draft of a great Dracula novel re-write and went shopping that around to publishers, you'd be in violation of a term in the will to destroy the papers. If you made a penny of of it, you'd likely find yourself in court and having to divide profits with heirs or fight for your ability to sell it at all.
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