Comment by jandrese

At the very least a system like this might force publishers to not drop ebooks from their stores just because.

But others would point out that being able to not distribute a work is part of having the copyright. If a corporation doesn't want to sell old works because they want to encourage people to only buy new works then that's their right. The government saying that it's fair game simply because there's no legal option to purchase it is an infringement on their right to withhold the work from the public. They could even have a policy of destroying all copies of the work once it goes off sale to make sure it never enters the public domain, that's also within their rights.