Cheeky Bob

True - I missed that bit. Though of course this only applies to original broadcasts, not to rebroadcasts of material already covered by copyright legislation.

(For instance, if you had a taped-off-the-telly copy of a Will Hay film that was broadcast in 1955 - unlikely, given that videotape recording wasn't invented for another couple of years, but bear with me - this would not mean that it's going to be OK to distribute it in 2006, as it would still be covered by film copyright).

Wolfgang

It is possible they are unaware in some cases, since if production company goes into receivership or is dismantled and film rights are not sold on then film is effectively abandoned. There is no-one around to pursue copyright infringement.

Steve Crook

But you have to be sure that they didn't sell on whatever rights they had before the company went belly up. Rights are often sold, and not always for a complete catalogue either. After that's been done a few times it makes it very difficult to track down the rights holders.

Steve

Cheeky Bob

The legislation does make explicit provision for cases where the rightsholders are unknown:

In other words, if you have a pre-1936 film and you have genuinely made some effort (and can prove this) to identify the current rightsholder and have drawn a blank, then you can legally regard the film as being in the public domain - until such time as a legitimate rightsholder appears (or is identified as having died less than 70 years ago).

If that happens, then the film automatically goes back into copyright - but I don't believe anyone who's been trading in it will be liable for prosecution, provided of course that they've taken steps to ensure that they've withdrawn it from their catalogue once its copyright status has been established.