Copyright information
When Barrie gave the rights in Peter Pan
to the Great Ormond Street Hospital in 1928, he wasn’t
just giving the play, but the whole concept of Peter Pan,
known in legal terms as The Peter Pan Gift, which embraces
all of Barrie’s writings in which Peter Pan puts in
an appearance - e.g. Tommy & Grizel, The Boy Castaways,
The Little White Bird, Anon: A Play, Peter
Pan in Kensington Gardens, Peter & Wendy, etc. When
The Lost Boys was made in 1978, the Hospital generously
accepted a token payment from the BBC since the budget was
very tight. My own budget for the book was even tighter as
it came out of my own somewhat threadbare pocket, and in the
circumstances the Hospital kindly allowed me to quote freely
without making any charge at all. It therefore seems only
fair that they should now own the book itself, and since this
website is an extension of that book, they necessarily own
the copyright in the material on this website.
The late Joan Ling used to run the Barrie Estate,
on behalf of Barrie’s literary heirs, to works other
than those embraced by the Peter Pan Gift. She - and
the Asquith family - generously allowed me to quote from Barrie’s
other works (including letters and notebooks) without restriction.
Joan died many years ago, and the Estate was officially wound
up in 1987 when Barrie’s works went out of copyright,
as per the Berne Convention’s 50-years-from-author’s-death
ruling (Barrie having died in 1937). But when the Convention’s
ruling was extended to 70 years, Barrie (and a great many
other authors/artists/composers) suddenly found their posthumous
shelf-lives extended by another 20 years - in Barrie’s
case, until 2007.
Copyright in the USA is governed by the Universal
Copyright Convention, by which a publication enters the public
domain 25 years after the author’s death – in
Barrie’s case, 1962. However, it was agreed in 1971
that the Berne Convention should take priority over the UCC
in countries signatory to both conventions, and therefore
Barrie’s extended copyright is guaranteed until 2007
in the USA as well. In the UK, the situation is a little more
complex with regard to the Peter Pan Gift in that the
House Lords passed a special resolution in 1988 via the Copyright,
Designs & Patents Act, effectively granting the Great
Ormond Street Hospital a perpetual extension to its right
to royalties in the UK “in respect of the public performance,
commercial publication or any other use of Peter Pan.”
Copyright in works by authors other than Barrie
cited in my book and on this website naturally remain the
property of the original authors/publishers or their estates.
Written permissions were obtained in 1978 for all such works
cited, and I trust that no objections will be made to publishing
them on this website. The principle copyright holder to the
Llewelyn Davies material - in particular, Peter’s Morgue
- now belongs to Nico’s daughter, Laura Duguid (Peter’s
three excellent sons having all died childless in the interim).
She has kindly given permission to reproduce not only the
Morgue, but her father’s letters to myself and
Sharon Goode, as well as the ‘interviews’ I recorded
with him in the 1970s. Denis Mackail’s grandson Charles
Yorke has kindly granted permission to quote from The Story
of JMB (1941), as has Roger Lancelyn Greene’s son
Richard with respect to Fifty Years of Peter Pan (1955).
A full list of acknowledgements and sources
appears at the end of my published book, and if anyone has
been overlooked, I offer my apologies in advance and would
ask them to contact me as soon as possible, either by email
()
or writing to me at:
Laurentic Wave Machine
Llannor
Gwynedd
LL53 8PX
Any profits derived from this website will be donated to Great Ormond Street Hospital Children’s Charity.
Should anyone wish to make use of material on this site for commercial purposes, they should contact the charity direct,
either via their website () or writing to them at:
Peter Pan
Great Ormond Street Hospital Children’s Charity
40 Bernard Street
London
WC1N 1LE
Tel. 020 7239 3047
(
Enquiries with respect to performance
rights in Barrie’s dramatic works should be addressed
to Samuel French Ltd (
Samuel French Ltd
52 Fitzroy Street
Fitzrovia
London
W1T 5JR
Finally, I must again make it clear that neither
the Great Ormond Street Hospital, nor Universal Pictures,
nor any other individual(s)/corporation(s) are responsible
for the contents of this site, which remains my responsibility,
and mine alone.
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