[anigbrowl]

Yeah I am doubting this too. The lawyer identifies a potential legal problem (clearances) that would have been trivial to solve. For about $50 you can file a copyrighted work with the librarian of Congress and get an officially USA-branded certificate of copyright ownership, and it only takes a couple of weeks. This is a norm in the creative industry because if you have filed your copyrighted work and it is later infringed, you can claim punitive damages as well as recoup your loss.

[Isamu]

I don’t think you have experienced the politics of high level executives in mega corporations. This is exactly the most plausible part of the story. Some legal executive likely jumped to some conclusion before talking to Rob to get all the facts, and didn’t want to walk back his position because he is so much more important than the tiny Unix group that it was easier to just kill it.

Remember Plan9 was not going to make money enough for any executive to care.

[morcheeba]

I read it as not a clearance problem, but that the lawyer didn't know who Lou Reed and Debbie Harry were and didn't want to release music from some randos the developers had found.

[anigbrowl]

Yeah, because actual randos could be people doing cover versions of music they don't own. But one could respond to this with 'they're successful recording artists, I can get the documentation you need right away.'