>You can abandon property to public ownership (land, cars, anything you leave in the street in England & Wales: it gets sold and proceeds go to the Exchequer or

>You can abandon property to public ownership (land, cars, anything you leave in the street in England & Wales: it gets sold and proceeds go to the Exchequer or Police) so your justification at the end doesn't sway me. Sure, bona vacantia is A Thing - but your comment spells it out. The copyright gets _sold_ by the state to whoever wants to buy it. That is not the same thing as public domain - the new owner can enforce their monopoly rights over the works which can screw over anybody depending on the work being "in the public domain".