Orphan works are reasonably easy to determine, they're usually many decades old and have had no royalties paid through the normal/usual channels for years—and t

Orphan works are reasonably easy to determine, they're usually many decades old and have had no royalties paid through the normal/usual channels for years—and they couldn't be paid anyway as the contact has long since been lost (address unknown). Just to be sure, schemes to protect owners exist and could be implemented. For example, all works in this category would appear in published lists with say a year's grace—if the copyright owner turns up within the grace period with proof of ownership then the work remains in copyright. There's another type material that we do not normally think of as being in copyright but in fact is. That's things like circuit diagrams, blueprints, plans, etc. from, say, obsolete equipment where the company has long gone bankrupt. Often there was no payment made for this info in the first instance as it came with the equipment (as manuals etc.). Denying it now on a copyright 'technicality' stops maintenance industries, hobbyists etc. from building repair infrastructures and such.