The other amusing thing I awoke to was an e-mail from a chap in the UK who asked, with the usual tone, where I had gotten the right to put out The Final Option and from what was our CD mastered - with the very clear snarky inference being that we'd just done it without securing rights. You see, this gentleman is apparently working with the composer's brother and family to issue the score on CD. I wrote him back and enlightened him - that it, like Billion Dollar Brain, with which it's coupled, were licensed from the rights' holders, and it was mastered from tapes in their vaults, just as the earlier FSM release had been. I then dropped a little bombshell on him - I said that if he were intending to release a CD of this score that a) he would have to get the rights from the rights' holders, just as I had, and, b) more importantly, that he could not issue such a CD for three years, per my contract.
He then suddenly got nice. He asked me if I'd give permission so they wouldn't have to wait three years, given that our disc is sold out. I told him it depended on when he wanted to issue it - I will not do that to collectors - we did ours more than nine months after the FSM big box set was issued, and I felt comfortable doing it because it had only been available in a huge pricey set. I told him May or June would be the earliest I'd sign off, just as FSM had to sign off for us to do it.
He wrote back and said, "forgive my naivete, but are you saying I need your permission, FSM's permission AND the lady at the rights' holders' permission (who he named). I said yes to me and the lady, not FSM, who already signed off. But then I wrote him back and said, "you'll have to explain to me that if you know the lady's name and you know who the rights' holders are and that they clearly have the rights to this title, why you e-mailed me in the first place with that slightly accusatory e-mail." I haven't had a response. I then informed the lady of everything - she already doesn't like the guy
And if I don't feel like signing off, she's perfectly fine waiting the entire three years.
