That's what I'm thinking.

The closest US copyright law has to abandoned works is covered by the term of art "orphaned works." The problem is that once copyrighted (and by extension once rendered in tangible form) a work can not be reproduced for the duration of copyright. If the author or rights holder cannot be located in order to license the work, it is effectively locked up until the rights expire. For unpublished works this can be 120 years or as long as seventy years after the author's death if that date can be determined. Orphaned works do not fall into the public domain, although there have been a couple of failed legislative attempts to make them available.
 
As sharke notes, this issue is further complicated by the fact that software is frequently licensed, so that restrictions on the use of the software extend beyond the prohibition on unauthorized copying. My understanding is that most Cakewalk software is under a nontransferable license. The only way to get that license is from Cakewalk, since it is forbidden for current license holders to sell or give away their license. 
 
As a consequence, unless the software is explicitly released to the public domain and licensed accordingly by the owners (Cakewalk and subsequent) there would be no legal way to either copy or use it for at least the duration of copyright protection. By then the issue will no doubt be of no interest to those of us posting here.

Here is a prime example that was in the tech news just in the past couple of days:
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Over the years video game developer Blizzard Entertainment has published many popular game titles, including World of Warcraft (WoW). First released in 2004, the multiplayer online role-playing game has been a massive success. It holds the record for the most popular MMORPG in history, with over 100 million subscribers. While the current game looks entirely different from its first release, there are many nostalgic gamers who still enjoy the earlier editions. Unfortunately, however, they can’t play them. At least not legally.
 
The only option WoW fans have is to go to unauthorized fan projects which recreate the early gaming experience, such as Light’s Hope....In recent years the project has captured the hearts of tens of thousands of die-hard WoW fans. At the time of writing, the most popular realm has more than 6,000 people playing from all over the world. Blizzard, however, is less excited.
 
[Blizzard] has asked the developer platform GitHub to remove the code repository published by Light’s Hope. Blizzard’s notice targets several SQL databases stating that the layout and structure is nearly identical to the early WoW databases.
 
Blizzard’s takedown notice comes just weeks after several organizations and gaming fans asked the US Copyright Office to make a DMCA circumvention exemption for “abandoned” games, including older versions of popular MMORPGs.
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Full article at https://torrentfreak.com/blizzard-targets-fan-created-world-of-warcraft-legacy-server-180203/
 

MandolinPicker
Here is a prime example that was in the tech news just in the past couple of days:
------------------------------------
Over the years video game developer Blizzard Entertainment has published many popular game titles, including World of Warcraft (WoW). First released in 2004, the multiplayer online role-playing game has been a massive success. It holds the record for the most popular MMORPG in history, with over 100 million subscribers. While the current game looks entirely different from its first release, there are many nostalgic gamers who still enjoy the earlier editions. Unfortunately, however, they can’t play them. At least not legally.
 
The only option WoW fans have is to go to unauthorized fan projects which recreate the early gaming experience, such as Light’s Hope....In recent years the project has captured the hearts of tens of thousands of die-hard WoW fans. At the time of writing, the most popular realm has more than 6,000 people playing from all over the world. Blizzard, however, is less excited.
 
[Blizzard] has asked the developer platform GitHub to remove the code repository published by Light’s Hope. Blizzard’s notice targets several SQL databases stating that the layout and structure is nearly identical to the early WoW databases.
 
Blizzard’s takedown notice comes just weeks after several organizations and gaming fans asked the US Copyright Office to make a DMCA circumvention exemption for “abandoned” games, including older versions of popular MMORPGs.
-------------------------------------
Full article at https://torrentfreak.com/blizzard-targets-fan-created-world-of-warcraft-legacy-server-180203/
 

Well well well!  I haven't kept track of WoW since 2006 when I stopped designing Warcraft sites (I was a Web developer for a few major companies back then).  It's interesting to know how things developed after I stopped developing.

...several SQL databases stating that the layout and structure is nearly identical to...

 
blizzard need to check more sql databases...