This is nothing but corruption, giving those select members of the quango a cash-cow at the expense of both the authors and society.
The article by the AFUL explains it well: http://aful.org/communiques/french-senate-proposes-to-legali...
Similarly, an author can assert their rights and ask for a republished book to be removed from sale, something which would not be possible if works were made public domains.
I'm not saying this a good idea, just that this is why they're not just removing the copyright from the works.
To me it looks like the incentives are not really in place for that.
1) If the authors are already present, registered, in touch, etc... they're already getting paid.
2) If the authors "can't be found", the big bureaucracy gets to keep the cash.
Italy has a 'collective management organization, the SIAE, and the thing is pretty much pure evil.
If I had to choose between the government (French, US, whatever) and Google doing such a thing, I would definitely choose an entity like Google on the grounds that since they stand to make money and have a stake, they'll manage it better than a typical government can.
Sorry, the research I've seen has shown the American government to be marginally more effective [1] and marginally less venal [2] at a much lower relative cost [3] than the French government. Quangos are usually in a class of their own when it comes to derision for public sector inefficiency [4].
[1] http://info.worldbank.org/governance/wgi/worldmap.asp (2010 Government Effectiveness)
[2] http://cpi.transparency.org/cpi2011/results/
[3] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Government_spending#Government_...
It's even more restrictive : only the public libraries can make these works available (and only to there suscribers)
The article fails to explain that the intent of the law is to deal with the problem of orphaned works. It creates a process whereby out-of-print works can have have their copyright seized by the state, in order to make them available in digital form. Out-of-print works with a copyright date prior to 2001 are to be entered into a publicly available list. Listed works can be challenged for 6 months. Works that are not challenged within this period, have their rights seized, so that they can be published again.
Perhaps the specifics of the law are problematic, but on the surface, it looks like a great idea to me. Authors get rights to their works for 11 years, after which, if the work remains available, things proceed as they do now. But out-of-print works whose authors cannot be found, can be legally made available again. And the process has checks on possible abuses.
So what's the problem?