Babar the Elephant

Anyone know if Babar the Elephant was privately owned or if the publishing company owned the first books? I read somewhere that the book publishers renewed some, but there are over 50 Babar books, so I fon't know if they have rights to the first six...

Funny you should mention this as just the past week I wondered the same. While I have no answer per say, he (though not named) appeared in the second volume of the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen

"Babar the Elephant
Histoire de Babar (The Story of Babar), Jean de Brunhoff
NTA
King of the Elephants. Not mentioned by name, Babar and his elephants escort Mina Murray and Allan Quartermain through the African jungle in The New Traveller's Almanac. Mina considers them very polite, but Allan denies that their leader is really wearing a crown."- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_The_League_of_Extraordinary_Gentlemen_characters#Babar_the_Elephant
I don't know whether or not you knew this. Most of LXG's characters are public domain, however the fact that they did not refer to him by name may indicate otherwise. I hope I might've given you some lead and I'm sorry if I didn't. Im quite curious as well, so please keep me posted.
-Mattd43

Hmm...correction. According to this site, it would appear he is indeed in the public domain. I'm by no means an expert but this says he is. http://www.wipo.int/wipo_magazine/en/2008/01/article_0010.html

Thanks Matt. I did know about his appearance in LXG, but not all of those characters are based on PD characters. There are characters based on James Bond and Mac the Knife who are not PD, but the derivative characters are cleverly disguised like that.

I also knew about this site regarding Barbar, but I still want to make sure it wasn't a work for hire. He's probably PD, but I like to really make sure before adding a character to my site...thanks for the help though...

Le Historie be Babar was first published in 1932, or 79 years ago, while it's author, Jean de Brunoff, passed away in 1937, or 74 years ago. Under European and French Copyright Law, using either the 70 year limit on corporate owned works, or the 70 years past the death of the author, Babar as a character, along with Celeste and the others, ARE Public Domain for The EU, Canada and other Commonwealth Countries.

In the United States, The Story of Babar was published in 1934, 77 years ago, and renewed by Random House Inc., in 1961. This makes Babar a copyright protected character in the US until 2027.

There you go.

Okay, so Random House does have the rights. Thank you!