Did you read the article? The reporter sought out expert opinion.Aristaeus said:Either the museum is pulling someones chain giving an excuse for not distributing them..... or a reporter is speculating.
“The short answer is that ownership is unclear,” said June M. Besek, executive director of the Kernochan Center for Law, Media and the Arts at the Columbia University School of Law. “There was never any arrangement for distribution of copies” in contracts between performers and radio stations in the 1930s, she explained, “because it was never envisioned that there would be such a distribution, so somewhere between the radio station and the band is where the ownership would lay.”
You're right, that's never happened in the record biz......Aristaeus said:I doubt Harry wold have signed the rights to his music over.