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processedmeat t1_je9p8xr wrote

Seems there is a 1 year gap where pan was in the public domain. Could I make a Peter pan story based on the characters in the gap and be in the clear or was the law retroactively applied?

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s1eve_mcdichae1 t1_jeao8bk wrote

Could you have done? Do you have a time machine that you're going to go back and publish it in 1987?

Or do you just think it's okay to publish an unauthorized Mickey Mouse cartoon today, as long as it is set before 1928?

I don't get what you think the loophole is, here.

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MagicBez t1_je9udhe wrote

You can just do what people like Dave Barry did with Peter and the Starcatchers and declare your work a "reinterpretation" and then you don't have to pay any royalties to Great Ormond Street

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Hattix t1_jedhjy9 wrote

The gap wasn't that small.

The law in question, the Copyright, Designs, and Patents Act 1988 has a provision which applies to specifically;

"The provisions of Schedule 6 have effect for conferring on trustees for the benefit of the Hospital for Sick Children, Great Ormond Street, London, a right to a royalty in respect of the public performance, commercial publication, broadcasting or inclusion in a cable programme service of the play ‘Peter Pan’ by Sir James Matthew Barrie, or of any adaptation of that work, notwithstanding that copyright in the work expired on 31 December 1987."

Not any derivative work. Not its predecessor, Little White Bird. Not even the 1924 novel "Peter Pan , or, the Boy who wouldn't grow up". Only the 1928 play.

Edit: It's also worth calling out that GOSH has no claim to title, it's royalties only. The hospital cannot grant or refuse any exhibition.

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