On 18 May 2007 at 01:34:33 -0700, Ray Saintonge saintonge@telus.net wrote:
If there is a documented assignment of rights this should pose no problems. In the long term, however, we need to be more open and less bureaucratic when rights are claimed by inheritance. Books that were written long ago are often forgotten when wills are written, or if there is an intestacy. Things can get worse when we are two of three generations removed, or there are large families.
...which is a good reason why it was a bad idea to extend copyright terms to the degree they are now (70 years after the death of the author in the U.S. and many other countries, still only 50 years after the death of the author in some countries; no renewal requirement); it causes a very large number of works to fall into copyright limbo where they're still not public domain, but the actual ownership is difficult to determine or prove. The old system of flat- length terms (28 years renewable for another 28) were much better for letting "orphan works" become public domain before it's been so long that all copies of the work are crumbled to dust anyway.