I realize this would create a huge accounting burden... but only in cases where it's worthwhile to continue charging for the property.
Now, on the other hand, if you phrase it as a renewal fee, that would go over much more smoothly. Patents, for instance, have maintenance fees required at 4, 8, and 12 years, and they double each time.
I'd love to see, as a step towards limited-duration copyrights again, an exponentially increasing scale of renewal fees. For instance, after the first 5 years, it could cost $1000 for the next 5, $10k for the next 5, $100k for the next 5, and so on. (Throw in a grace period where all existing works get 5 years from the date this is passed, so people can adapt, and have time to evaluate what to renew.)
On that scale, after 5 years, any work producing value would be worth renewing. Some works will be worth renewing for 20 years. Incredibly high-value works might be worth renewing for 30 or even 35. But there'd be a serious tradeoff there; is it worth spending that much to renew the copyright of an old work, or to create a new one that grabs people's interest?
And as a bonus, abandoned works that no longer have anyone around to care about renewing would move into the public domain.
At any time you have the option to quit paying and give your IP to public domain. Also, any IP not in the registry would automatically be in the public domain. This would solve the issue about orphan works and give some benefit from the IP to the society that enforces the IP.
Exclusive right to copy something (or make derived works) is not an intrinsic right. It's a right given to you by society. As above, it's great that once it is given to you, that you own it. It would suck if society could just arbitrarily take it away from you. What I think you are trying to argue is related more to the fact that copyright is not an intrinsic right. As a society, we do not have to grant a copyright at all if it is not beneficial to us. We need to do a better job of balancing the interests of all parties.
The proper way to solve the problem with excess copyright is by properly limiting the duration as written in the constitution.
And, it can be morally justified -- if someone is sitting on the rights for a work, and isn't using it, then it makes sense to levy a tax against it as they are utilizing the expensive resources of the world governments in order to defend the copyright.
Who will swiftly pass the additional cost on to their customers. Voters who see it that way won't vote voluntarily to pay more just so content creators can keep their copyright.
There is no large concentration of wealth on the other side of the issue to support it, therefore it will never happen.
Sorry folks but that's how politics in the USA works.