At BoingBoing, Glenn Fleishman talks about the relaunch of Omni magazine:
A few weeks ago, I posed the question here, “Who Owns Omni?“, about the beloved, defunct magazine of the future created and run by Kathy Keeton with significant involvement by her husband Bob Guccione, the founder of Penthouse. The best answer I was able to come up with after talking to past Omni editors and writers, contacting potential current copyright owners, and researching Guccione’s personal bankruptcy and General Media’s more complicated bond default was: nobody.
Almost all of the authors, photographers, and artists whose work appeared in the magazine had signed contracts that granted only short-term rights. The staff writing and other work for hire — owned by the magazine itself — was relatively minimal, and the owner of those rights is to my best efforts currently still unknown.
Next week, however, Omni will be reborn. Not the original, but Omni Reboot: a new online publication that takes its inspiration and direction from the magazine that so many of us grew up on and loved.
While I wasn’t a huge fan of Omni (I preferred Analog), I’m happy to see the old property being revived.
