When I was in college, I kept a scrapbook of Sherlock Holmes-related articles and pictures that I came across, a practice that didn’t stay with me long. What I got out of it, however, was a lovely time-capsule of the Sherlockian world of that era. It ranges from Funky Winkerbean comics to a shot of classic Hollywood robot “Robbie” as Holmes to more serious bits like the 1980 headline “Copyrights Expire On Sherlock Holmes.”

That was in England, of course, and the copyright situation is ever-changing, but that headline is always one of my favorites. I’m a firm believer in the notion that Sherlock Holmes belongs in the public domain at this late date, although I doubt we will ever see it. Conan Doyle is long gone, as are his descendents, but corporate entities like Disney are forever working to make sure that intellectual real estate becomes as firmly nailed down as the rocks-and-dirt sort.

It makes one fully appreciate how different the world has become from that of Sherlock Holmes’s time. In the Victorian era, money was exchanged for goods and services. In order to bring in the cash, one had to exchange product, land, or one’s activity . . . tangible, visible, real things. If you bought coal for the stove, it was between you and the coal-man. No one was trying to profit from some concocted coal futures market, mucking things up. If you went to the doctor and he splinted a broken arm or give you some pills, you paid the doctor. There was no army of medical insurers, claims adjusters, HMOs, PPOs, etc., etc., each trying to make a few bucks by forming a line between you and the doctor.

In these days, people are making money by buying the rights to words. You don’t have to write a book any more to make a living from language; just buy ownership “www.heresacashflow.com” and sell it to somebody else for more than you paid for it. Tradmark a phrase and a concept. Pulling money from thin air is the new way to make millions.

How does that hurt us? Consider our legends, our mythological heroes, our cultural icons. Anybody remember Paul Bunyan? Robin Hood? Achilles? They were stories that were, and are, a part of our human heritage. No one owned them. They belonged to all of us as human beings. Tales of great deeds and cautionary wisdom. Heights to aspire to. They weren’t being manipulated by corporations, but by our hopes and dreams as they were passed from generation to generation. But we won’t see their like again.

These days we don’t have legends. We have “properties.” No character created from this day forward will be free of those intellectual property shackles, fully owned and controlled by someone who is not interested in what they say about us as people, but what they can do for their bank accounts. Small minded accountants make the decisions instead of story-tellers.

Sherlock Holmes almost escaped the flood-waters of commerce back in the 1980s . . . almost. So close, but not quite. And while his rights might be benefitting a charitable cause for the moment, there’s no guarantee that they might not be bought up one day by some corporate empire who will do who knows what with our old friend. And a fellow who once might have been Robin Hood suddenly becomes “Luke Skywalker TM,” just another property in the Disney or Warner Brother intellectual stable.

Too damn bad.

Your humble correspondent,

Brad Keefauver