Is it free to use BBC material, such as news reel and archive footage, in your own commercial film production?

[singingkaz]

Is it free to use BBC material, such as news reel, BBC drama and archive footage, in your own commercial film production?

[Rollo]

You can't use it without their permission, otherwise you would be infringing their copyright.

Whether they would want to charge you if they said it was OK to use their material I don't know. You would have to ask them.

[tonymclark]

As Rollo says, permission at least should be asked, particularly for commercial use.

BBC Worldwide is set up to exploit BBC programmes and it's contents, and they would be able to advise you.

[socket2008]

No you can't. The BBC would charge you and if course you would be breaking their copyright.

ITN offer a buyout/rights management option on archive footage. However, clips aren't cheap. I recently needed a 70 year VT clip of a sussex town for a documentary I am working on. The cost? �149 for 35 seconds.

As for the BBC, their BBC Motion Gallery is the best place to go.