Who to ask if you want a soundtrack to be released?

[wesen]

Hi,

who do you have to ask if you want to have the soundtrack of a game released? The composer of the songs, the publisher of the game or both? And what can you do when the publisher is bankrupt?

[Jazz Paladin]

Your own arrangements of the songs, or theirs?

[wesen]

I would like to have the songs exactly how they appeared in the games. So I guess these are the composers / publishers arrangements.

[Jazz Paladin]

If you are using the original recordings from another source, that will be much more difficult if it is tied to an IP. Not impossible, but definitely expensive. In my experience, when I have tried obtaining licensing directly through companies, it results in a flat-out "No!" response.

Which is why I am grateful that compulsory law exists--although it would not be applicable to your scenario since the original recordings are not yours, there's no way to use them without the consent of the publisher/composer

It would be much easier if the recordings were your own. In such case, you would basically just need a mechanical licence , which is easily obtainable via compulsory law via parties such as easysonglicensing.com

If the publisher themself is defunct, in all likelihood, you would just need express written consent of the original composer in my recollection.

[Jazz Paladin]

To clarify :

The reason the composer and publisher are almost 100% likely to say no in your case has to do with the fact that you'd essentially be able to make money off of the work someone else has done. Even if you don't produce CD's and go straight for a digital release such as spotify, iTunes, etc, you'd eventually be able to derive a fair amount of money from the sales/streaming of someone else's work. In the case of recordings that you had produced, you would of course be entitled to earnings, and the composer would get something out of it too in the form of a royalty ; in your particular case, I doubt that the composer/publisher would find it to be fair to have their original recording giving a payout to someone else, as that is ultimately what would happen given the way most digital platforms are structured right now.

Not trying to put a damper on your efforts, but that is most likely how they will see things.