A gift that outlasted ordinary copyright
When J. M. Barrie gave the rights to Peter Pan to Great Ormond Street Hospital in 1929, he turned a popular story into a continuing source of support for a children’s hospital. The arrangement matters because copyright normally expires: once protection ends, people can generally use a work without paying its former rights holder.
Parliament made a special exception for the hospital. Even after Peter Pan entered the public domain in the United Kingdom, Great Ormond Street retained a legal entitlement to royalties from certain uses of the work there. The provision is unusual: it preserves payments without giving the hospital ordinary, permanent control over the story.
How a story can generate royalties
A stage production, a commercial edition, or a broadcast can bring the work back into circulation—and, where the special provision applies, trigger a payment to the hospital. The money is tied to the use of Peter Pan, not to every work inspired by it; a new adaptation may involve additional creative material and rights of its own.
That distinction lets the story keep being performed and published while its original charitable purpose continues to benefit from some uses. The arrangement also means that the hospital’s connection to Peter Pan is more than a historical dedication: the legal afterlife of the gift can still follow the story onto the stage and page.
