Who Owns Pacific Magazines?

Who owns the copyright to most of the genres of Pulp Fiction/Magazines published between 1920-1950?

• I am really looking for a history of the mainstream Pulp magazines like Argosy and State Street, Wynn, Hersey, Thrilling/Standard. I also would like to know more about the more neglected and forgotten genre and series.

• Answer:

  Nobody owns a copyright on a genre - it's too broad to be enforceable, even when the debt is quite obvious, as with that The Matrix owes to Ghost in the Shell owes to Neuromancer. As to who owns the copyright to the magazines, most of the authors of the fiction were able to reclaim their copyrights and nullify old contracts thirty five years after publication (a part of American copyright law) assuming they renewed them at all. Thus the magazines may have no "copyright" to speak of as they consisted of works published under license. However, the window for this termination of contracts was only five years, so many authors who overlooked it may have let the contracts continue for as long as the work was covered by copyright. As to who owns the rights associated with the magazines these days, that varies on a case-by-case basis; I think Paizo (formerly part of Wizards of the Coast) owns Amazing Stories, for example. See here for the termination of contracts after thirty-five years: http://copyright.gov/title17/92chap2.html#203