Many reasons.
- There needs to be a determination that there is a victim before any reassignment.
- There would need to be a much bigger change in the law for the government to be the owner. They weren’t a party to creation.
- Government stuff is subject to FOI, archiving, etc. Even if it can’t be copied, all sort of information about it could still be public. That law would need to be fixed too.
- The government isn’t going to know the wishes of the victim. What if the victim wants to publish? Weirder things happen.
- The government is unlikely to know about infringement before the victim. The victim is going to be able to react sooner.
- It assumes the government will pursue legal action.
- Criminal penalties for copyright are few and far between. Civil penalties are much more common.
- Automatically assigning to the government takes away an avenue for the victim to get restitution.
How’s this for a solution: it would be trivial for any victim to assign the right to a government agency. Just sign a piece of paper. It could even include a checklist of things, such as rights to sue, royalties from lawsuits, etc. I would suggest assignment to an independent agency that self funds through enforcement.
