Peter Pan and Tinker Bell in court battle

PETER PAN, the boy who wouldn’t grow up, has been dragged into court in a fight over copyright held

Canadian author Emily Somma has filed a lawsuit in San Francisco claiming the characters in Peter Pan, including Tinker Bell, Wendy and Captain Hook, are now in the public domain and no longer protected by a copyright awarded to Great Ormond Street Hospital for Sick Children in 1929.

The suit is a pre-emptive move in anticipation of legal action by the London hospital, which currently holds the copyright to Peter Pan.

Great Ormond Street has already ordered Somma to halt publication of After The Rain: A New Adventure For Peter Pan, which has been published in Canada and can be bought in the US through the internet.

A lawyer for the hospital claims Somma's efforts to publish a work without paying royalties is depriving the hospital of revenue it needs to treat sick children. But Somma's lawyer, Elizabeth Rader, said the author had offered to pay royalties.

The copyright to Peter Pan and its characters was awarded by the original creator, James M Barrie, to the hospital in 1929.

US copyright protection for Barrie's works, including The Little White Bird - a Peter Pan prototype and the children's play Peter Pan would normally would have expired in 1987,

a half-century after Barrie's death.

However, in a letter ordering Somma to halt publication of her book, the hospital's lawyer, Alvin Deutsch, says a 1976 US law extended the copyright protection for Peter Pan until 2023. Somma's lawyer says that figure is inaccurate.

"They have a theory that spells out to that year," Rader said. "But I don't see how it adds up." The impending legal battle is part of a growing debate over copyright material.