Seminar series

Orphan Works: an academic and practical review of the current law

12th January 2023, 6.15pm

Bristows LLP

100 Victoria Embankment

London EC4Y 0DH

(In person)

For our first session of 2023, we will be looking at the UK’s orphan works regime which governs creative works or performances for which one or more of the right holders is either unknown or cannot be found. Maria Mercedes Frabboni will summarise the academic discussions around the Orphan Works Directive and developments under UK law, and Lord Justice Colin Birss will then talk us through his personal experience of applying for and successfully obtaining an orphan works licence.

Lord Justice Birss was appointed a Lord Justice of Appeal on 25 January 2021 and Deputy Head of Civil Justice from 11 January 2021. He took silk in 2008, was appointed as a Specialist Circuit Judge of what we now know as IPEC in 2010, was appointed to the High Court in 2013, and has been a Deputy Chair of the Copyright Tribunal.

Dr Maria Mercedes Frabboni, Lecturer in Law, University of Sussex, has conducted research on regulation of non-attributable or abandoned visual art and published on issues surrounding the use of orphan works. She has also commented on reforms affecting the management of copyright by collecting societies in the music and art sectors, and is the Honorary Treasurer of BLACA.

Chair

Simon Clark, Honorary Secretary, BLACA