Comment by cookiecaper

>With orphan works specifically, the concern that I've heard expressed by some photographers is that companies will spend exactly 10 seconds trying to track down the copyright holder before deciding it's orphaned and using the work as they see fit.

Isn't that the point of a national copyright registry? I understand that you don't have to register a copyright to be protected by it, and I also understand that it's not desirable to register every work individually, but making use of a copyright registry would alleviate this particular problem.