[SteveDallas]

I imagined there were issues like that, but I also imagined they were more surmountable than you describe. Musicians, yes, but I assumed other folks would generally be on a "for hire" basis. I suppose it depends a lot on the contract.

Is there generally a term on these contracts? Are they assignable to heirs? (I imagine at least half the musicians on that George Szell album I pulled out as an example are dead. For that matter at the time there must have been an expectation that the recordings would lapse into the public domain at some point... though obviously that doesn't look very likely now.)

This, by the way, is the biggest reason there are almost no new recordings by American symphony orchestras. The labels are unwilling to pay the musicians what the musicians (almost all unionized) demand.