Quote:
Originally Posted by Phogg
My guess is that probably within twenty years the public will lose patience and modify copyright law to require a work be offered to the public in order to retain rights. I am betting it will be amazing how fast backlists come online and very few works will be abandoned to the public domain.
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Twenty years might be too long.
The ongoing debates over "orphan works" are already headed that way.
In fact, the latest twist in the ongoing Google land-grab lawsuit could expedite that particular solution if Google's scanning effort were declared fair use.
On the software side, there is already the concept of "abandonware" where copywrited products not actively supported or defended are distributed as defacto Public Domain.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abandonware
If the Google trial were to deny class action status and require individual authors to acively step forward to challenge the scanning of the print editions it would result in a whole class of defacto abandonware books and likely prompt legal action to codify when such scanning is fair use.
We might see such changes before the end of the decade.