Peter Pan and the Copyright that Never Grew Up - Plagiarism Today
Peter Pan and the Copyright that Never Grew Up - Plagiarism Today
Peter Pan and the Copyright that Never Grew Up - Plagiarism Today
When most people discuss perpetual copyrights, they’re usually its at least somewhat hyperbolic.
Outside of Mexico, copyrights in every nation expire and works become free for others to use without permission or royalty.
However, there is one interesting exception to that rule: Peter Pan.
Through a special bill in the U.K., the boy who never grows up has been granted a copyright that, at least in part, will never expire.
While the case of Peter Pan is certainly an unusual one, it raises much larger questions about the purpose of copyright, how long copyright terms should be and what the function of copyright law should be.
So it’s worth taking a moment to understand how the boy who won’t grow up became the boy who won’t completely enter the public domain.
Key point - rights to certain royalties were given by the author to the leading children's hospital in the UK. This makes it very different indeed. Helping fund Great Ormond Street Hospital is the far greater good.
Good summary!
Is it though? I'd frame it as "government robs children of new Peter Pan stories in order to pay for childrens' hospital" -- it's like those 'feel-good' stories in the news about children laboring at lemonade stands to raise funds for their mother's cancer treatment. It's easy to forget that these are scenarios with only bleak options because of the unstated premise that the rich will never pay their share.
Don't let perfect be the enemy of good.
Yes, the rich should pay more, a hell of a lot more. I'll go further and say that in a perfect world they shouldn't be allowed to become so wealthy in the first place because the only way to do that is through exploitation of collective resources and other people's labour.
Yes, Great Ormond Street should be fully funded via the government, as should the rest of the NHS. Yes, it should be stable and not subjected to party politics, disaster capitalism or grift. We're a very long way from any of that though and we are talking about children's lives. And even in a perfect world, more money will still be of use.
Children need new stories but they don't need new Peter Pan stories specifically. Moreover, writers and other creators who want to write new Peter Pan stories can still do so. They just have to pay a percentage of the income from the use of this particular IP in the UK as royalties.
I'm not keen on your framing at all.