In some cases, copyright was never renewed and the works are now in the public domain.
Also, there exists a sizeable industry of grey market repressings of out of print albums (on CD and vinyl) and there has been for over 30 years. That is something that sells someone else’s work without consent. The internet sites discussed here do not charge for the recordings.
And as to that $200 ebay album... the artist, the label, and the songwriter see none of the proceeds of sales of original copies of out of print albums on the used/secondary sale market. (exception being some small garage band that kept a dozen copies of their high school disc and are informed as to what prices their little single brings today, say $800 for a 45).
http://www.manzanera.com/QuietSun1.htm
What’s funny is that the RIAAMPAAWMPABCDEFG or whatever they call themselves....Don’t go after non English websites. I’ve discovered several Spanish,Russian and a few Portuguese sites that have full albums of old American 60’s groups....and in 64kHz to 96kHz, sometimes even greater.
Copyright should be for max 15 years with registration required at a nominal fee. After that renewal every 10 years required at a nominal fee, maximum four renewals. Current registered copyrights are considered registered at the time the law is enacted for renewal purposes. Ten years is also the latest after enactment that a non-registered work can be registered in order to not lapse into the public domain.
Enact it now, start the clock ticking now. We will see a flood of public domain works in 10 years and we will have completely eliminated the issue of orphaned works.
Someone once upon a time pointed me to a pianoroll museum website and a group who wrote a piano roll to MIDI converter program. I downloaded several hundred old pianorolls from the heyday of the player piano.
http://tech.slashdot.org/tech/09/01/05/0224202.shtml
http://www.iammp.org/rolldatabase.php
http://www.trachtman.org/rollscans/RollListing.php
I’ve seen at least one new turntable product that has as its function the transfer of LPs and 45s onto digital media, using a USB cable to the computer.