Hacker News Reader

Comment by hn_throwaway_99 | Hacker News Reader

Thanks very much for posting this tidbit, very interesting!

After seeing your comment I did a little googling, and fascinating to me is that a special law was passed in the UK specifically to make one of the Peter Pan copyrights held by Great Ormandy Street never expire: https://www.plagiarismtoday.com/2015/10/21/peter-pan-and-the...

View on HN

Huh, very cool. I had never imagined there would be a scenario where I was genuinely happy about a never ending copyright!

In this case the copyright seems to have expired essentially everywhere, but a special UK extension for Peter Pan allows for royalty collection for performances or adaptations of the play there in spite of the copyright's expiry.

Keeping some stories out of the public domain forever is a pretty terrible way to fund something.

Don’t worry, Pan never wanted to grow up.

I dunno, if it saves some children's lives, instead of Disney trying to make it another blockbuster franchise, that's perfectly fine by me.

Taking away freedom is always about "saving children's lives". It's so common in fact that the instant one hears about "saving children's lives" we can be certain something very bad is going to happen.

I am not a big fan of copyright myself, but calling being unable to use someone else's story for yourself "taking away your freedom" is a bit too much.

Isn't it obvious where this could be going? Let's save more children's lives by making all copyright infinite.

I mean, no? There is absolutely no indication that that particular slippery slope is being slid down. Can you even point to anyone advocating for infinite copyright on all works on the basis of the Great Ormond Street example?

Not if you really believe in the concept of public domain. Old stories should belong to everyone, not "someone else".

The proper solution would have been for the state to fund the hospital as needed, while freeing everyone else to create content based on Peter Pan if they wished so.

Agree, there should be other ways in a modern society.

Civilization is made of unsavory compromises... Funding by taxation and committee spending, or by fetishisation of conspicuous consumption are also pretty bad and yet quite prevalent.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com