Take a look at this list of new science fiction put up at Project Gutenberg. Lots of familiar (and fairly recent) names there: Philip K. Dick, Mark Clifton, Leigh Brackett, Poul Anderson, Norman Spinrad, Frederik Pohl, and Jack Vance. And the last three of those are still alive.
It would be interesting to know how these slipped into the public domain. Did the original magazines where they appeared use work-for-hire contracts, or did the authors forget to file the copyright renewal?
Edited to add: Wrong link, fixed now.
Edited to add 2: Really, really fixed now. This time for sure!
About Lawrence Person
Lawrence Person is a science fiction writer living in Austin, Texas. His short fiction has appeared in Asimov's, Analog, Postscripts, Jim Baen's Universe, Fear, and several anthologies. He also edits the Hugo-nominated SF critical magazine Nova Express, and runs the Turkey City Writer's Workshop. His non-fiction has appeared in National Review, Reason, Whole Earth Review, The Freeman, The World & I, Science Fiction Eye, The New York Review of Science Fiction, and Slashdot.org. He owns such a large library (mostly science fiction first editions) he had to buy a two-story house to put it in, and then adopted a golden retriever to drag him out of his house on a regular basis. He also makes a mean batch of salsa.
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I suspect most authors in those days had to sell the story outright. You’ll often see in anthologies that a story has been reprinted w/ permission of So & So Magazine Publishing, rather than the author.
With all due respect to Project Gutenberg, which does a lot of good work, many of its assertions that works first published in magazines have fallen into the public domain are wrong. Some are correct; but many are not.
To oversimplify: The rules on what a registration protects or requires under the 1976 Copyright Act do NOT retroactively apply to works first published under the 1909 Copyright Act — most particularly including the distinction between a “serial registration” under current law and the ownership of the copyright at the moment of publication under the 1909 Act.
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Here is an interesting explanation:
http://cand.pglaf.org/bear-response.txt
“I was under the impression that it was the people doing the imprisoning that were generally the kidnappers, not the people granting freedom. Silly me.”
(note the quote.)
whats the purpose throughout ripping off legend conflicts?
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link wrong (yeah, still wrong)
It’s been over a year and Project Gutenberg has changed their structure, so it won’t show up what I wanted to point out anyway.