Alex Craig examines how the case of Peter Pan might impact on the future of copyright protection
“All children, except one, grow up...” This is the opening sentence of a captivating story most of us will be familiar with—the story of Peter Pan, a young boy who declined adulthood, creating his own world of Indians, pirates and fairies. Although staying safe in Never-Never Land helped him avoid entering the grown-up world, one thing that couldn’t be avoided was the inevitable expiration of copyright in the work in which he appears. On 31 December 2007 copyright in Peter Pan expired in theory, making it freely available to the general public. This would have had severe repercussions had the author, JM Barrie, not bequeathed all rights to the work to in 1929. ’s reasons are subject to some debate, but it is assumed that wanted rights in his works to pass to an organisation that would entertain and look after the one thing in life that most
