There may be legislation in the works in America for making copyright more open, based on this governmental report.
The report's conclusion:
"Both the use of individual orphan works and mass digitization offer considerable opportunities for the diffusion of creativity and learning. Too often, however, the public is deprived of the full benefit of such uses, not because rightsholders and users cannot agree to terms, but because a lack of information or inefficiencies in the licensing process prevent such negotiations from occurring in the first place. As countries around the world are increasingly recognizing, these obstacles to clearance are highly detrimental to a well-functioning copyright system in the twenty-first century. The Office thus agrees that a solution for the United States is 'desperately needed'.
For orphan works, the Office recommends the adoption of a modified version of the 2008 Shawn Bentley Act that would limit the infringement remedies available against a user who has undertaken a good faith diligent search for the rightsholder and completed certain notice and attribution requirements. For mass digitization, a comprehensive solution likely would require legislation establishing an ECL option, which we believe should initially take the form of a limited pilot program developed through additional stakeholder outreach and discussion. Should Congress wish to consider an ECL model, we recommend that any legislation follow the general framework described here notably, that it be limited, at least at the outset, to projects serving nonprofit educational and research purposes and that it provide an express opt-out right for copyright owners. Ultimately, the Office concludes that legislation addressing both orphan works and mass digitization could do much to further the objectives of the copyright system by providing legal certainty to users, establishing reliable mechanisms for the compensation of authors, and making vast numbers of long forgotten works available for the public good."