Stanford Center for Internet and Society

At long last, the Great Ormond Street Hospital has responded to Emily Somma's complaint for declaratory judgment, filing today its
Motion to Dismiss.
GOSH argues that the Federal Court in California has no jurisdiction over it for this dispute between an English hospital and a Canadian author. While admitting that GOSH has done business with California movie makers, specifically licensing the copyright at issue in the suit, beginning with Disney, it denies doing business in California. This Motion is noticed for May 14, 2004 before the Honorable Jeffrey White in San Francisco.

We've learned that the Central Authority in London, England succeeded in serving defendant Great Ormond Street Hospital on January 10, 2004 (only about one year after we filed the original Complaint). The Central Authority still needs to certify that the requirements of the Hague Convention are met but that is mere housekeeping. Thanks to John Talbot of Talbot's Investigations for following up on the service saga.
By agreement GOSH will file its response 7 days before the last date to file the joint case management conference statement.
The case is reassigned to U.S. District Judge Jeffrey White, sitting in San Francisco.

While waiting for service under the Hague Convention to be completed, we served Defendant, located in London, via International Federal Express on November 17 and filed a declaration concerning service with the Court, explaining exactly what we did.
Today I received an e-mail from the Court stating that the Defendant has been served and the Answer is due December 8. We have a case management conference scheduled for January 14, 2004.

Since his introduction in 1902 in The Little White Bird, Peter Pan has appeared in numerous works of literature, music and art. Peterpanfan.com is a nice website that I just found, apparently run by volunteers, with links to a wealth of information about Peter Pan works and forums where fans can discuss them.

You may be wondering why nothing seems to have happened in this case since January. The reason is that the defendant, the owner of the copyright in the play "Peter Pan," is located in London in the United Kingdom. In order to obtain jurisdiction over the defendant in the U.S. District Court in San Francisco, California, CIS is having the defendant served according to the Hague Convention on the Service Abroad of Judicial and Extrajudicial Documents in Civil or Commercial Matters, a treaty signed by both the United States of America and the United Kingdom. Essentially, our process server transmits the Summons and Complaint and related documents to the Senior Master of the Supreme Court in England (Central Authority) and the Central Authority is required, under the Convention, to serve the United Kingdom defendant.

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On Friday December 20, The Center for Internet and Society asked a California Federal Court to hold that Peter Pan is in the public domain and that authors have the right to build on the public domain character by writing new stories about Peter Pan. CIS filed the Complaint for Declaratory Judgment on behalf of Emily Somma, author of “After the Rain, A New Adventure for Peter Pan”, a new childrens' book about Peter Pan, built on the Peter Pan character first introduced in 1902 in the JM Barrie novel “The Little White Bird.” She asked the court to find that the character Peter Pan is in the public domain and that Great Ormond Street Hospital, which claims to own all rights to the fictional character "Peter Pan" cannot prevent her from publishing "After the Rain" in the United States.

1. Why are you bringing this lawsuit?

Emily Somma has written a beautiful children's book that builds upon the original stories of Peter Pan. These original stories are in the public domain, and free for anyone to build upon. She has been threatened, however, by lawyers representing the current holders of the copyrights of more recent Peter Pan stories. They say that because there is some Peter Pan work that is still under copyright, no one can develop derivative Peter Pan works without their permission. Thus to enable Emily Somma to continue to distribute her work, we need to resolve this dispute.

MyShelf.Com has an interview with Emily Somma on her book, After the Rain. [Scroll down about 1/3 of the way.]

The Associated Press has an article on Emily Somma's Peter Pan character case in Author's suit claims copyright has expired on Peter Pan.