There's a famous phenomenon in copyright known as the orphan
works problem. It refers to the situation in which the copyright
owner of a given work cannot be found. This effectively prevents
others from using such a work as part of a new project. For
example, if you want to make a movie based on a novel, you must
first get permission from the novel's copyright holder. But if
the novel is an orphan work, then you can't even find the
copyright holder. Technically speaking, you could proceed
without permission — but you would do so at your own risk. The
copyright owner could emerge at any time and demand penalties.
You might end up having to pay damages; worse, you might have to
abandon or censor your derivative work, no matter how much
effort you'd put into it. Related to the problem of orphan works
is another problem, much more serious, yet much less discussed.
I call it the ghost works problem. Ghost works are all the works
that never get made in the first place, or are made but not
released, because copyrigh