> The "collective management organisations" set up to manage this will be paying royalties to authors, something they wouldn't get if their books were made public domain.

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.