You are mistaken on retroactive copyright; publishers and artists who failed to secure copyrights the first time around did not get retroactive postmortem copyr

You are mistaken on retroactive copyright; publishers and artists who failed to secure copyrights the first time around did not get retroactive postmortem copyright granted to them. The classic example is the library of H. P. Lovecraft, whose stories are considered public domain as there is nobody who has a reasonable claim of copyright to them.