Forget Christmas – The Real Gifts come on 1 January!

“Data, data, data, I cannot make bricks without clay.”

These are the words of Sherlock Holmes in The Adventure of Copper Beaches written by Sir Conan Doyle back in 1892. Even back then, it was recognised how important information really was, and today, nothing is different.

We’ve just never really gotten around to understanding how best to use the information available to us.

Protests are held for free education though really, notwithstanding classes, examinations and certifications, education has never been cheaper. It’s just a shame, YouTube and public libraries cannot hand out degrees.

Strategic market targeting has never been easier, and with the speed information can travel, business has never been as expedient.

It’s no wonder that, increasingly, those who understand how to leverage information are the ones who are able to leverage profit alongside it.

That’s why every year, 1 January is incredibly exciting. It’s because this is the date that material in which copyright expires enters the public domain. Among those are the last of the Sherlock Holmes shorts, Hitchcock’s first thriller film (The Lodger) and, incidentally, even a song called The Best Things in Life are Free.

To many, this is just a matter of interest but it really matters. Not only does material entering the public domain give creators more to work with, it also allows for reworking classic content for today.

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When the BBC created the modern adaptation called Sherlock, after Benedict Cumberbatch’s character survived his fall on a series cliffhanger in 2012, the UK spent two years speculating how the dude survived.

Hilariously, when the series returned in 2014, it trolled them by offering three ridiculous possible options but no definitive answer. The point is that an entire country was left on the edge of their seats for two years because of content that had been reincarnated from a concept that was over 100 years old.

It’s just that we tend to do very little about it.

Imagine my excitement back in 2017, when a duo in Cape Town reworked Brahms’ Hungarian Dance #5 classic into a song called Get Wild, with Amy Tjasink.

To many, it may be just another song but when I played it during an interview with an orchestra conductor back in my radio days, he made a pertinent point: such reworks take something the youth would never have engaged and make it palatable for their generation. In other words, it brings attention to the things that would otherwise be too old to be noticed.

These are the opportunities we need to start grabbing.

It’s hardly a secret that the art industry in South Africa is woefully underfunded, so when free material becomes available, it should hardly be shameful to take it and use it. And the international market has shown us just how powerful adaptations can be.

It’s just so strange to me that as more and more free ideas come into the fold, we’re seemingly doing less and less.

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Perhaps we’re still waiting for 2049 when we can start thinking about doing a Venda version of James Bond, where he enters the Casino Royale greeting everybody with a gruff “Ndaa”.

I mean, Spiderman doesn’t enter the public domain until 2058, but ever since the 80s we’ve had Rabobi, so it goes to show that adaptations can be so good, we’d be willing to pay for the rights. It has to be asked why we’re sending our Rands abroad to pay for things when there are more and more free options every year

Netflix’s latest sensation is based on a ’60s sitcom and has all of social media doing a silly Wednesday dance to an 11-year-old song (yup, that’s when Lady Gaga released Bloody Mary and contrary to the song, Jesus never said how to dance).

There is a strong case to rework good works and every year, more of them become available.

It’s up to us to actually do something with them. Hopefully, in 2023, we’ll see more of it.

After all, ke tsa mathomo, Aubuti Watson.