The cutest legal provision
My life is complete: I have found a cute legal provision. Not just cute, actually: really cute.
Four words: copyright in Peter Pan.
Normally (in the EU), copyright in a work expires 70 years after the author’s death. Previously, this tended to be 50 years rather than 70.
The author of the play Peter Pan, Sir James Matthew Barrie, died in 1937, and at the time, the rule of 50 years applied, i.e. copyright was to expire in 1987. It turns out that Sir Barrie bequeathed copyright in his Peter Pan works to the Hospital for Sick Children, later renamed Great Ormond Street Hospital, in 1929.
While copyright in the works expired in 1987 (only to be later extended to 2007, when the “70 years” regime came into force), the Brits decided to create an exception to the standard rule, and included in the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 a “Section 301″ and a “Schedule 6″.
The substance of these rules? They confer on the Hospital the following:
a right to a royalty in respect of the public performance, commercial publication or communication to the public 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 31st December 1987
In other words, perpetual royalties, at least within the UK.
Now I dare you not to find that cute…
15 March 2010 at 20:01
I’d rather say it is quite frightening for culture. When you are a MP and you find some work cute, can you bypass the original terms of the law that was intended to take the general interest into account ?
15 March 2010 at 20:15
Don’t be a spoilsport, François! Here, the general interest pleads in favour of the Hospital for Sick Children more than it does in favour of free public performance/publication/communication to the public…
16 March 2010 at 09:27
Well thanks for raising a debate Peter
I’d say that if you want to fund some charity, it’s better not to turn IP law into a perpetual tax machine. It’s not fair. The law was never meant to permit that. What next ? Plus, IP rights are transferrable : how much is such a right worth ? A big amount of money, certainly, and it could well be found in someone else’s hands in the future. The law would then have to be changed if there has to be any coherence, which implies a tracking of those IP rights that were made perpetual… Well…
16 March 2010 at 09:51
The provisions expressly mention the Hospital, so there’s no worry about the money ever going to anyone else. If the Hospital ceases to be, then the royalties also stop.
Of course it’s not fair, and not necessarily the best way to fund charity. It is, nevertheless, a thought that brings a smile to my face – some law has that warm fuzzy feeling written inside it.
16 March 2010 at 13:56
I am not so sure about the transfert part, but it’s more of a petty discussion, so I must come to what I should have said first : this blog post is a nice and intesting reading !
17 March 2010 at 04:16
I find it amusing that anybody could be against legislation which will benefit a children’s hospital, all in the name of a play.
17 March 2010 at 07:33
So I propose helping Haiti by asking a fee for every use of the “Haiti” word. Would you agree ?
17 March 2010 at 23:42
That’s different; Haiti isn’t cute.
18 March 2010 at 19:02
Wouldn’t it even be against Human Rights?
And anyways, if it weren’t for the disaster, people wouldn’t care for Haiti, which is itself a sad truth.
20 March 2010 at 01:24
It wouldn’t be against human rights because no human rights are being violated; an earthquake is not a legal entity. Nice non sequitur.
20 March 2010 at 10:37
Jaca, I wasn’t referring to the earthquake. I was referring to this: “[...] a fee for every use of the “Haiti” word.”
And you don’t have to be insulting, either.
20 March 2010 at 12:43
It’s not insulting, Philip: it’s because you started with human rights and then with the way people don’t care about Haiti
20 March 2010 at 14:35
That would probably infringe freedom of speech. Balancing rights…
I can’t help but agree with JacaByte #8 anyway.
20 March 2010 at 16:10
Sorry for the harsh response, Jaca, my bad.
20 March 2010 at 16:53
My apologies as well; I thought you were Francois and didn’t realize you were supporting my argument… :/