My understanding of the situation in the UK is that it's roughly as uncertain as that in the US, though admittedly I'm much less familiar with the UK particular

My understanding of the situation in the UK is that it's roughly as uncertain as that in the US, though admittedly I'm much less familiar with the UK particulars. For example though, this is an excerpt from a recent publication of the UK Intellectual Property Office: Are digitised copies of older images protected by copyright? Simply creating a copy of an image won’t result in a new copyright in the new item. However, there is a degree of uncertainty regarding whether copyright can exist in digitised copies of older images for which copyright has expired. Some people argue that a new copyright may arise in such copies if specialist skills have been used to optimise detail, and/or the original image has been touched up to remove blemishes, stains or creases. However, according to the Court of Justice of the European Union which has effect in UK law, copyright can only subsist in subject matter that is original in the sense that it is the author’s own ‘intellectual creation’. Given this criteria, it seems unlikely that what is merely a retouched, digitised image of an older work can be considered as ‘original’. This is because there will generally be minimal scope for a creator to exercise free and creative choices if their aim is simply to make a faithful reproduction of an existing work. Interestingly, the most on-point case for the US, Bridgeman v. Corel, actually applied UK copyright law in addition to US law. This case's status as a non-binding district court decision is the source of much of the uncertainty on the US side of things, so obviously it's even less binding in the UK as a decision of a foreign court.