what prevents someone from laying a copyright claim on something in public domain ?
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If anyone tries to claim ownership of something in the public domain and tries to pursue it to the extent that it goes to court*, then it will be dismissed. There is no legal leg to stand on.
However, *some* aspects of this can be muddled, as in the case of Sherlock Holmes. Until very recently, only the pre-20th century entries in the Holmes canon were in PD (many people don’t actually realize that the stories continued far into the 20’s). This meant you could create a work using the characters and elements of plots from the works before the cutoff date. However, there was quite a protracted legal battle when it came to elements that were deemed as resembling the books that were published *after*. The film Enola Holmes, the Doyle estate contended, was in violation of their copyright because the characterization of Henry Cavil’s Holmes as kindly and honorable (rather than manic and prickly) was more in line with the characterization from the later stories. This was widely considered to be a cynical cash grab by the estate and the case was [reportedly settled out of court.](https://copyrightlately.com/themencode-pdf-viewer-sc/?tnc_pvfw=ZmlsZT1odHRwczovL2NvcHlyaWdodGxhdGVseS5jb20vd3AtY29udGVudC91cGxvYWRzLzIwMjAvMTIvQ29uYW4tRG95bGUtRXN0YXRlLXYuLVNwcmluZ2VyLVN0aXB1bGF0aW9uLXRvLURpc21pc3MtV2l0aC1QcmVqdWRpY2UucGRmJnNldHRpbmdzPTEwMTEwMDExMDEwMTAxMTExMDAmbGFuZz1lbi1VUw==#page=&zoom=&pagemode=none)
*There are cases on YouTube where people acting in bad faith will use YouTube’s copyright claim system to claim rights to works which are in PD in order to claim a portion of the video’s profit or out and out demonetize the video. But that is an instance where it’s usually not worth it for people to pursue a counter claim in court. As such, YouTube is full of people exploiting this system to bad ends. This is one of the reasons a lot of gaming YouTubers will work with MCN (Multi-Channel Networks) because these companies will have an existing relationship with YouTube’s own team and a procedure for clearing this sort of thing.
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