Stanford CIS

CIS Asks Court to Rule that ‘Peter Pan’ is in the Public Domain

By Stanford Center for Internet and Society on

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.
The current version of the Complaint is here href="http://cyberlaw.stanford.edu/about/cases/filing/Amended Complaint 1-07-03.pdf">Download file

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