Sega doesn't even hold the rights to recent Sonic's music?

This actually isn't too surprising in my opinion. It all matters on contracts, deals, permissions, and such but often in games the music is not owned by the company and they are only given rights to use the music for this game and such. There are exceptions, some companies have it where the music becomes there's, but in many cases it's a case of "OK I need some music for this game, would you compose and we agree to let you keep the music rights but I use it in this project".

It varies from deal to deal but it seems that may be how SEGA works, not trying to seal the deal to keep music more so they sign to have music used in this game and so on.

Another example, I right now have permission of a very talented orchestra to use their music for something, but that does not mean I own the songs. They have given me rights to use the song on a variety of medias and for what I need it for, but that does not mean I own the songs but are free to use them in the way we agreed upon.

 

Actually, I was under the impression that it's standard for game music rights to belong to the companies. They give the composers the job of writing music specifically for their games. Same for movies, tv, etc. Sonic 1 and 2's music was an exception for whatever reason.

Ugh, second edit:

TV Example: The English-dubbed music for DragonBall Z belongs to Funimation. One of the composers, Bruce Faulconer, had released 9 albums of "his" (rather his barely-mentioned team's) music, and he had to get permission from Funimation to do. When he went to them to release a tenth album, they said no. He's not allowed to release any more soundtracks; unless they again give him permission or, like Sailor Moon's creator apparently did, he could possibly buy back the rights I guess.

...Personally, I'm curious to know if, after a length of time of not being used, the music rights eventually go back to the composer/s?

 

Well not always true. I think Nintendo makes it so that all music composed for their games ARE there's for example. But then using myself as an example again tracks being composed for me are being made for the project, but that doesn't mean the music belongs to me but I am getting permission to use it even if it's being created for this project.

It might sound a little complicated but really it isn't, just the music creators want to have ownership of the music they compose which is understandable, so it belongs to them (the composer) instead of the corporations, and SEGA respects that and only asks they compose the music for the games but they can keep the rights.

 

Oh yeah, I'd love for that to be the case. But when a big company is involved like Sega, they usually retain the rights. Which is why I ask, is your project a small team effort or is there a large company backing you?

Actually, doesn't Jun Senoue have to get permission from Sega even to put his music on Myspace and the like? There ya go.

 

Any music he's done for Sega's games.

 

A tad late, but I'd chalk this down to the same reason that Sega Mega Drive Ultimate Collection contained NTSC ROMs and art - laziness. Unless it has been proven that the actual game file is the European one.

 

Nakamura was an outside artist (namely, a level of a stadium-level band) contracted to write the music; in his case, he could claim whatever rights he wanted in the contract. These, on the other hand, are employees (either present or former) of Sega, so the story might be different. I know nothing of Japanese copyright law to make a valid claim on how its industry works for composers who are full employees.

A lot of (later) ROMs are multi-region (namely, their header has a JU, UE, JE, or JUE) and we have dumps of those which are not, so it'd be trivial to find out.

 

OK so I've received a lossless rip from Zepp and encoded it into FLAC.
http://www.mediafire.com/?kd4c5trlz6kf2j5