[Elfwreck]

Anyone know what happens to copyrights when someone dies intestate with no heirs? I've found several references that say "if someone dies without a will, assignment of copyright is done by intestate law," according to whatever state/region/whatever. But nothing indicates how an heir is chosen for a person with no living relatives--and unlike physical property, like a house, nobody demands that copyrights be assigned to *somebody.*

Is it, "find some distant relative, no matter how distant, and that's who inherited the rights?" Or if there's no relative in range of standard intestate law (roughly, through grandparents, and maybe aunts/uncles/cousins), does ownership "revert to the state?" (Which I'd think would mean "become public domain," but just because that seems reasonable doesn't mean it's true; this is copyright law.)