Is Peter Pan currently copyrighted?

Question

Is the story of Peter Pan copyrighted at the moment, and if so, to whom? Does it fall under Fair Use? I've been thinking of doing a comic book adaptation of it, but I'm not sure if that's legal. Does anyone know if it would be or not?

Answer 1

JM Barried left the rights to Peter Pan to the Great Ormand Street Children's Hospital, and the rights expire this year, I believe. That is why the hospital commissioned Geraldine McCaughrean to write Peter Pan in Scarlet, as Peter Pan has been a great income generator for them.

Get a lawyer. Don't mess with Disney or children's charities.

Answer 2

You cannot make your peter pan characters appear or look in any way like the Disney animation versions as those are protected by trademark. You can use the name peter pan, wendy and such because they were not original with Disney. You cannot use the script for the movie, but you are free to either base it on the original works, or better yet a new story using the characters from the original. The story is PD in the United States, and will fall out of rights internationally this year as Barrie died in 1937. EU authors enjoy life plus 70 years protection.

Answer 3

The original Peter Pan was created by J. M. Barrie. All proceeds from his sales were to be given to charity. Disney's adaptation has little to do with the goodwill of this author. Please, if you are considering doing your own adaptation, read the book first and then maybe give a part of your proceeds to charity as well. The copyright issue is complicated as you can check on Wikipedia.

Answer 4

If I remember Peter Pan is a Disney character and my bet would be they have all copyrights covered.

Answer 5

Probably by Disney. They own everything now. My daughter thinks that Disney wrote all the old fairy tales because they seem to produce a cartoon for every classic and then promote the hell out of them with their plastic toys at burger king.