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A recent answer to a question here about the legality of publishing a work for which the copyright owner cannot be found mentions

If the owner has no legal heirs, in most jurisdictions the property escheats to the government (in the US to the state government).

How do U.S. state governments normally deal with such intellectual property whose copyright has escheated to the state? Do they auction it off? Release it as public domain? Something else?

I know that U.S. federal government publications are normally released into the public domain, but I'm not sure if that applies to the state governments at all or if it would apply in the case of orphaned works that have escheated to the state.

reirab
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    Many US Federal publications are in fact sold, rather than released into the public domain. So also are many state publications. Others are made available free of charge. States can copyright their own publications, and often do. But none of that settles what happens when a state comes into possession of a copyright (or other IP) that was previously privately owned. – David Siegel Jan 08 '23 at 22:28
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    @DavidSiegel many US federal publications are sold and released into the public domain. Any publisher is free to print and sell copies of works that are not protected by copyright, and the US federal government is no exception. – phoog Jan 08 '23 at 23:18

1 Answers1

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If the owner of the intellectual property leaves property subject to the jurisdiction of the state of Washington, and it is determined that the owner is dead and has no heirs, then per RCW 11.08.140 it is designated escheat property. Then the following sections specify that title to the property vests in the state. The Department of Revenue has jurisdiction over that property, which has the duty to protect and conserve the property for the benefit of the permanent common school fund. There is no general answer to the question of what would best benefit the school fund. Any form of giving it away would not benefit the school fund, at least if there was an viable option for sale / licensing. There are provisions that relate to the possibility that an heir is eventually uncovered, but I will assume that no heir ever appears.

Ohio law is similar. The decendant's property escheats to the state in case there is no heir. Then under ORC 2105.07,

the prosecuting attorney of the county in which letters of administration are granted upon such estate shall collect and pay it over to the county treasurer. Such estate shall be applied exclusively to the support of the common schools of the county in which collected.

user6726
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    There's the practical question then: If I want to make copies of such intellectual property, are even acquire the copyright, how would I go about that? Who would I ask? – gnasher729 Jan 09 '23 at 02:57
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    @gnasher729 I suspect that there are few people with valuable IP who don't have beneficiaries declared to inherit it, so it never really comes up. The value of any IP that escheats to the state is probably less than the overhead of trying to monetize it. – Barmar Jan 09 '23 at 16:02
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    @gnasher729, I'll give you the publisher's answer. The publisher probably has knowledge of the license terms, and may know if the author transferred vs. licensed the work. The publisher may have personal knowledge of the author's heirs, or at least the author's colleagues, who may assist in the hunt. In the case I have in mind, it proved impossible to identify an heir, and the work was not republished. The economic value of the work was very low, but the intellectual value was high. – user6726 Jan 09 '23 at 16:17
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    FWIW, I've never become aware of an instance where intellectual property actually escheated, although it certainly could. There aren't a lot of precedents to look at. I've never encountered a state seeking to bring an infringement case based upon escheated intellectual property. – ohwilleke Jan 09 '23 at 19:52
  • @Barmar That’s quite unsatisfactory really. I should be able to either buy it or take it for free. – gnasher729 Jan 09 '23 at 20:09
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    @gnasher729 Breaking News! Government is F'ed up. – Barmar Jan 09 '23 at 20:12
  • @ohwilleke, I’ve written some software in my time that is still under copyright, but I’m sure none of the possible owners even know about it. One project I worked on for a year was cancelled because the company was sold, nobody was interested in it, so I spent a day putting it into a complete state, put it on a cd, gave it to my manager, and who knows what happened to it. – gnasher729 Jan 09 '23 at 20:18
  • @gnasher729 The generalized issue is called the "orphan works" problem and some countries allow for mandatory licensing of orphan works in a manner similar to covers of songs. The U.S. is not one of those countries. – ohwilleke Jan 09 '23 at 20:26
  • @gnasher729 And, at least in the U.S., for copyrighted works that aren't made for hire (or are anonymous or a few other such things,) a work created after 1978 remains copyrighted after your death by definition. The copyright expiration date is actually defined in relation to the date of death of the author! – reirab Feb 09 '24 at 05:04