Probably the most significant part of the problem is that so many copyrights are controlled by very very large corporations. Unfortunately, the larger the company, the less responsive they are to what they deem to be "small" requests.

Example of this that I'm dealing with currently: I co-wrote a song about 25 years ago that was recorded by a country artist named Trace Adkins. My co-writer and I discovered over the last week that a regional bank chain in TX is using the song on their radio advertisements, but they've never obtained a license to do so....they're playing dumb, saying they "didn't realize they needed one". Sure, right, okay. Both myself and my co-writer were signed with Warner/Chappell at the time we wrote the song, so they own the publishing. I reached out to WC, hoping to put the two parties in touch so that the proper license could be completed and I could get paid.

WC effectively told me that it wasn't enough money for them to bother with. The exact same thing has happened to me on more than a few occasions.

I completely agree with Joanne that it should be easier to get licensing done. That's one of the tasks of the new MLC which was created as a part of the Music Modernization Act. Unfortunately it won't be up and running until the first of the year, and I suspect there will be a lot of bugs, glitches and errors early on because of how rushed the entire thing has been.

http://www.rogerbrownsongs.com
http://www.nashvillesongwriters.com/roger-brown