Both U.S. House and Senate are considering bills to allow use of "Orphaned Works" if an appropriately diligent search is conducted before use. What does that mean? It seems the term "diligent" is not well defined, at least according to many in the art community, who are worried about their works being co-opted by commercial interests:
http://illustratorspartnership.org/index.php
Text creators may be in a better situation than visual artists, as it's currently much easier to find text through a search online and identify the original author, and anti-plagiarism tools like "TurnItIn" can make this even easier. But it may be a good idea for those of us who care about issues of copyright to pay attention to these bills. They could have broad implications for how text enters the public domain in the U.S., if they eventually pass in some form.