John Lange has entered the chat

Techdirt writer Glyn Moody's review of copyright law touches on the gloomy subject of orphan works:

These are works, typically books, that are still covered by copyright, but unavailable because the original publisher has gone out of business, or simply isn’t interested in keeping them in circulation. Copyright means that unless the current owner can be located – a difficult task for obscure works that were created decades ago – it is against the law for someone else to reprint them. Nobody benefits from this, but attempts to address this situation, like the EU’s Orphan Works Directive have been half-hearted and ineffectual, and the problem remains.

Meanwhile a seven-figure deal with the estate of Michael Crichton demonstrates the value of dead authors even when they're pseudonymous.