Peter Pan is known as the boy who wouldn't grow up, but he's also the copyright that won't expire thanks to a unique law in the UK.

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.