Before he died, “Peanuts” creator Charles M. Schultz told his

family he didn’t want anyone else drawing his strip, and that

animated shows based on the characters should end as well. But

when Schultz began the strip in the 1950s cartoonists routinely

gave up their copyrights to distributors. United Media owns the

“Peanuts” copyright and it got 61 percent of its $84.9 million in

1998 revenues from the comics, TV shows and licensing deals.

Think they’ll let the franchise go dark? [SF Examiner]