I'm about to register my own publishing concern.
Among other projects dear to my heart is the re-edition of a book that came out in the mid '70s. I own the only copy of the book that I've ever seen (and I bought it at a jumble sale back in the late '70s). It's #4 on my list of favourite children's books. And when you read that tied for 1st place are the 2 Alice books by Lewis Carroll, and #5 is Momo by Michael Ende (I'm keeping schtumm about #3, because I'm going to make a bid for the Spanish translation rights and I don't want THOSE snatched from under my nose), you'll know that the bar has been set pretty high.
I have tried surfing Internet to find the author. The book's title appears only SIX times on Google (once in a comment that I myself had made), the author's name only ten... and NONE of those pages help me to locate the author*. The publishers apparently disappeared in '81, and the Google results on THEM don't lead me to my author.
My question: If I print on the inside front cover of the book that I'd be thrilled and honoured to meet the author, and more than happy to hand over all royalties - which will be kept in a special account until that time... can I be done (for example, by unscrupulous shysters) for infringement of copyright?
(I fear that the author is dead. He'd have his own web-site nowadays if he were still alive. I'd be happy - admittedly not AS happy - to hand the royalties to anybody proving to be the legitimate heir(s).)
* A few of these results were from those awful automatically-generated web-sites. "Looking for Vrtwrqdeeithrlc Qczertsjdh? Find him on 'LostBuddies.com' "
The answer is yes, you can be done for copyright infringement. In the UK, it's 50 years after the death of the writer (IIRC in Europe it's 70 years). I'd suggest two things: Contact the Society of Authors - they may not help if you're not a member, but also contact WATCH - this page is very helpful: http://norman.hrc.utexas.edu/watch/uk.cfm