--- Ray Saintonge saintonge@telus.net wrote:
An easy example of a true 0% chance could be a corporate publication from a company that has ceased to exist through bankruptcy.
Birgitte SB wrote:
I have never heard of something "defaulting" to the Public Domain because of the dissolution of the copyright owner. If things "defaulted" the Public Domain we would not have the existing situation with Orphan Works.
Many lawyers in Europe will tell you that the public domain "doesn't exist". I wouldn't agree with this fundamentalist view. But whether you call it public domain or not is more a play with words than a practical reality. The problem with orphan works is not the kind of situation Ray described above. The problem with orphan works is that you *don't know* whether there is a copyright holder that might sue you. In Ray's example you *know* that nobody is around who can sue you, and so you can go ahead and publish without any risk. These are two different situations.