Quote:
Originally Posted by gmw
Unless a change to copyright is going to be retrospective, then it is record keeping as it now exists that will be applicable to tracing works in the future.
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I'm not sure that the problem is recordkeeping. It might be that it has to do with legal issues, and that these haven't changed, or at least haven't gotten less common.
I don't have an internet age example of an eBook becoming unavailable, but I do have one for music. Everything here was once available at record stores throughout the US, and, for all I know, the world:
http://www.showmusic.com/showmusic/P.../pscds.htm#TOP
Ben Bagley, the leading personality and apparent owner of Painted Smiles Records, died in 1998. His star-studded, often rave-reviewed, product line is (despite my misleading link) now unavailable, except, sometimes, for used LP's and CD's. No iTunes, no Spotify, no Amazon MP3.
Why? I don't really know. But I can't believe demand is zero.*
I wonder what would have happened if Bagley had lived a few years longer, and made an agreement for his line to go on iTunes. Then, one day, perhaps shortly after Bagley died, Apple would presumably have gotten a royalty check returned as undeliverable. Would they have pulled the products, or still sell them?
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* Someone may check and see that iTunes does sell one Bagley recording, apparently because it is distributed by a still-existing record company.