http://www.lalettredelaphotographie.com/entries/736-rolls-of-film-by-gilles-caron-rediscovered

This article is probably the source of the news. It contains much more interesting details.

If the situation stays as is, destruction is going to happen anyway, and not necessarily by throwing them into a huge bonfire: if they are moved into improper storage, they will rot and decay. Corbis won't bear the costs of special storage forever.

Until there is some legislation regarding the licensing of orphaned works, I doubt that any museum or archives would be interested in getting hold of them (they have enough orphaned works of their own). Instead you'll have other photography agencies, who can distribute and license the images and "save" the royalties for photographers, if they ever come claiming their cheques. But according to the article, even agencies don't seem to get any reply from the liquidator.

Did anyone try to contact them and get detailed information? We still don't have all the details.

I think that the WMF can still play some part here, and that is the so called "spreading awareness". I think that bringing up the issue of orphaned works could win us points with the GLAM community, and could also be good PR for us too: "The Wikimedia Foundation calls on lawmakers to save world heritage", "The Wikimedia Foundation spearheads attempt to save 50 years of world history" or similar titles would be great for our image. This issue can also be used to point out why we need to promote free content, why we need better copyright laws, why corporations active in fields of culture should assume more responsibility etc. It's relevant in so many ways.

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