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Comment by MarcScott | Hacker News Reader

Only on HN would people complain about a kids' hospital getting a little extra money from the copyright of a book, which was the author's intention.

As it happens, I'm off to GOSH this morning, to teach kids on the dialysis ward how to use Scratch.

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I think the issue is more that this kind of stunt is necessary at all - that a private memorial for a man’s money should be needed to preserve the lives of children.

That hospital should be fully funded through taxes. The government should be taking care of those kids, not the Peter Pan Estate.

The hospital itself is primarily funded through the NHS which pays for its core work. The GOSH charitable foundation (which the PP Royalties go to) pays for things like additional research funding, some capital equipment for cutting-edge kit and additional family support.

The one thing that I think it funds that should be coming out of government funding is building work to maintain/replace buildings that are near end-of-life.

when someone uses children to get money, I'm mores suspicious, not less

Ooooh nice! I remember when I celebrated Halloween there with my ex a few years back, when she worked there. Lots of fun memories.

To the other HNers, I can tell you that GOSH is one of the more deserving places for a perpetual copyright.

As has been pointed out: Give them perpetual funding according to the needs of the children, not pervert unrelated systems to provide an unstable income stream.

Your mistake is in equating a voluntary donation by a private individual out of his own goodwill to government funding. As a private individual, if I wanted to simply give money from my work to an institution, the government should have no say in how returns from my work should be used, except if it is in the spirit of facilitating my intended purpose. The status quo is exactly what JM Barrie had intended.

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