"Holmes scholar files suit to put Sherlock unambiguously into the public domain"

Some stories written by Arthur Conan Doyle about Sherlock Holmes and his associates are still under U.S. copyright, but most (50 of them) are public domain. The Conan Doyle estate, however, has made royalty rumblings over the use of the characters in new imaginative works, and one author has now gone to federal court seeking a ruling that the characters and their overall setting (as distinct, presumably, from elements specific to the still-copyrighted stories) are fair game for the makers of new books and films. [Cory Doctorow, BoingBoing]