Adding New Story Elements Didn't Keep Sherlock Homes Characters Under Copyright in Later Stories<br>Illinois Federal Court Agrees with Copyright Infringement Plaintiff that Expert Can be Used To Help Explain Complexities of Music Created on Computers, But Rules for Defendant Lady Gaga<br>
Adding New Story Elements Didn't Keep Sherlock Homes Characters Under Copyright in Later Stories
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit decided that the original characters in pre-1923 Sherlock Holmes works by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle are in the public domain, though additional elements were added to the characters in the stories still under copyright.
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An annual tradition continues as we present the responses to our Legalweek question. For 2026, it was "where are we with prompting"?
The volume and sophistication of work hitting law firm marketing departments is accelerating. That moves the burden from responding to being ready: ready with differentiated positioning, ready with competitive intelligence, ready to get a compelling pitch to the right client before a formal process even begins. That requires more sophisticated output, produced faster, by teams that are already stretched past capacity.
In categories where products are difficult to differentiate on performance, and that describes most of the AI industry today, customers do not choose on features, they choose on trust. Brand integrity, in those markets, is a material business asset.
The annals of copyright decisions could provide a reasonably representative catalog of what our culture has been up to over the past 200 years. A Feb. 3 decision from the Southern District of New York is a case in point. It involves a sex-trafficking conspiracy, Tweets attacking a troubled crypto firm, and a claimed transfer of copyright ownership through a restitution order in a criminal case, all over an undercurrent of competing First Amendment and victim-privacy concerns.
Matthew McConaughey secured eight federal trademark registrations covering his voice and iconic catchphrases in a novel legal strategy aimed at combating AI’s unauthorized use of his voice and likeness. The move signals an important evolution in the power dynamics between talent/brands and the companies providing generative AI tools.
