Board Thread:General Discussion/@comment-1916997-20150312220054/@comment-260553-20150826193654

Adam, Eddy, and the writers haven't always handled things as smoothly as they might have, but many of the things that people want to fault them for are either based on erroneous perceptions or aren't actually negatives.

We know that the rights to use Peter Pan were secured before Season 2 even went into production because of the fact that Adam and Eddy and Co. were able to include the character of Captain Hook in promotional materials for it that were aired at the conclusion of Season 1.

Disney had already opened themselves up to potential legal trouble by releasing Return to Neverland without securing permission from the Peter Pan rights holders to do so; allowing the Once Upon a Time showrunners to use Peter Pan-related characters - especially when those characters were not directly based on anything that Disney had previously done with them - would have further exacerbated the potential for legal challenge, and i is clear that they recognized that and therefore worked with the OUaT showrunners and ABC in order to properly secure the licensing rights.