Quote:
Originally Posted by Critteranne
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I think, the main purpose of these lawsuits might have been to establish the
Conan Doyle Estate as the (sole) rights holder of "Sherlock Holmes".
Because as it turns out, it is not quite clear who actually owned the rights to the books or the characters at that point.
You can read about it on the wikipedia page of Jean Conan Doyle, the daughter of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle:
->
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean_Conan_Doyle
"She and the widows of her brothers initially shared control of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's literary trust; however, the women did not get along."
"Using a loan from the Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS), in 1970 Princess Nina [*one of her brothers widows] bought the estate and established Baskervilles Investments Ltd. [...] Eventually, the princess fell dramatically behind on the loan, and the RBS ended up with the rights to Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's works."
"The bank then sold the rights to Lady Etelka Duncan [...]"
"Conan Doyle Estate Ltd., a privately owned UK company formed in 2005, claims that Dame Jean regained some of the US rights following the passage of the Copyright Act of 1976, [...]"
"At her death at age 84, Dame Jean's will stipulated that any remaining copyrights she owned were to be transferred to the Royal National Institute for the Blind."
"The National Institute for the Blind sold the rights back to the Conan Doyle heirs."
"(As of 2015 there were eight surviving Conan Doyle heirs. None is a direct descendant, as neither Jean nor her brothers had any children.)"