What if I digitise a work that is out of copyright – can I claim a new copyright in the digital image?
Where you have made an original contribution, you may be able to claim a copyright in the digital image. You will not gain a copyright in the original work itself, which means that someone else could produce their own digital copy of the original without infringing any copyright you might have in the digital image. In certain, very limited, cases you might acquire a publication right in unpublished works. There is some disagreement about what it takes to add a new copyright. Batch scanning of slides or photographs might not introduce an original copyrightable element, but careful attention to lighting and colour management might do. It is clearer where you have created digital images of 3D works such as sculptures or artefacts, since you will have selected a particular view of the work.
