But most unfortunately, GENERATIONS removed from [in the case of films] the original camera negatives and the original multitracks from which the stereo masters were derived!
In the case of the films, hundreds were lost of which the only copies existed in the vaults.
The original multi-tracks are a tragic loss, but in most cases they were never going to be used again anyway.
If all we had lost in the film vault fires were the original negatives and deleted scenes but still had pristine BluRay copies of the final cuts?
That would the comparison here. Tragic, yes. Never should have happened? Obviously. Completely irresponsible on the part of Universal? Undoubtedly.
But suing that the artists are losing money over this? That’s a bit of a stretch, IMO. Let’s be real here. Who knows better than us MC fans the degree to which most of the artists couldn’t give a rat’s patootie about the multi-tracks?