Copyright and Orphan Works
A paper prepared for the Gowers Review by the British Screen Advisory Council
In its response to the Gowers Review call for evidence, the British Screen Advisory Council (BSAC), the umbrella group for the audiovisual industry, acknowledged the desirability of making provision in UK law which would permit use of orphan works in certain circumstances. We had not, though, at that time reached a consensus on the precise form that provision should take. We are, however, particularly well placed to consider issues such as this as our Members represent a wide cross-section of interests in the audiovisual sector, including major right holders, small right holders, those who use other people’s copyright material and those who have an interest in preserving audiovisual material in the public interest. In many cases, of course, those who create and own rights in copyright material are also users of other people’s copyright material which makes the views we express more balanced than might otherwise be the case.
As a result of a request from the Gowers Review Team to prepare a paper setting out our views in more detail on the issue of copyright and orphan works, we have tried to reach a consensus on fully elaborated proposals for a provision in UK law. We have also as far as possible tried to highlight any problems as well as suggesting solutions. We are pleased to have been asked to undertake this challenging task and would be happy to discuss this issue further if that would be helpful. A provision that would permit legal use of orphan works would benefit many people, from writers, film makers and artists to researchers and historians, as well as librarians, archivists and curators with the mission of making culturally significant material available to the public. Addressing this issue is therefore, in our view, very much in the public interest.
British Screen Advisory Council, “Copyright and Orphan Works,” Copyright Cortex, accessed October 18, 2026, https://copyright-cortex.org/policy-evidence/copyright-orphan-works.