Who owns the rights to the music?

I’m curious about something. Does Microsoft own the rights to the music of Halo, or does the composer actually have the rights? From what I know, Martin O’Donnel and Michael Salvatori, whilst all they’ve really down music wise is for Bungie, they technically have a company named TotalAudio that the Halo soundtracks are supposedly under, so perhaps they retain the rights to their music? But what about Neil Davidge? Far as I know he does completely work for 343i now and not his own little company like Marty.

I think 343 owns the rights to the music. but you might be right when you said that microsoft does.

I just mainly want to know, because I want the Reach soundtrack on Spotify. All the others are there, just not Reach!

I think for the Bungie games at least their might be a shared ownership between Microsoft and the composers. For example, in the Microsoft Game Content Usage Rules it states that “the music from Halo 3 is available for your use in non-profit ventures thanks to an arrangement with O’Donnell/Salvatori, Inc., composers of this iconic theme”. So Microsoft needed O’Donnell and Salvatori’s permission to allow this. I don’t know if they have a similar agreement with Davidge.

> 2533274848539555;4:
> I think for the Bungie games at least their might be a shared ownership between Microsoft and the composers. For example, in the Microsoft Game Content Usage Rules it states that “the music from Halo 3 is available for your use in non-profit ventures thanks to an arrangement with O’Donnell/Salvatori, Inc., composers of this iconic theme”. So Microsoft needed O’Donnell and Salvatori’s permission to allow this. I don’t know if they have a similar agreement with Davidge.

8 Years into the future
I got a response back from both of the composers saying they didnt own the right to the music, the Microsoft link is scuffed now so theres no evidence I can find of Microsoft owning them, and Im not how I would get 343 Support on this but Im almost certain its owned under them. If anyone knows for sure I would def want to know!

i thought maybe the composers own the rights because of certain drama in the past which I won’t bring up, but I’m not sure.

interesting i have this doubt too

This would be great to know as well I’ve always thought Microsoft did… well I guess it’s still a mystery till this day lol

Please don’t revive old topics thanks.

The updated game Content usage Rules can be found here:
https://www.xbox.com/en-US/developers/rules