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.

  •  emma   ( @emma@beehaw.org ) 
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    211 months ago

    “The motion will be heard on March 18, 2005”

    Oh look, another one BEFORE the 2007 change in status.

    I’m really don’t have the spoons for your lack of understanding on this basic fact. Besides your bizarre instance that authors require the free use of someone else’s characters to express their ideas instead of, oh I don’t know, creating their own characters to express those ideas.