I'm going to run the risk of playing devils advocate here a little, and probably get slaughtered by you all in the process. lol
You can understand why FD wants to keep that back catalogue rotating and resurfacing.
At the end of the day you have FDM, this little french Jazz label, that suddenly almost overnight skyrockets within the music market because they have completely unexpectedly within their midst France's biggest musical export, and every market in the world want's a piece of JMJ. Jarre is very much one of those overnight superstar stories that I doubt will ever truly exist again.
I guarantee FDM's financial revenue exploded exponentially after Oxygene, and continued through the next couple of albums before levelling off to a more consistent income.
FDM continues to give their superstar artist good backing for the best part of two decades, and not without come pretty crazy requests I am sure.
Think for a moment about being FD, in the company of Jean Michel when he finally agreed to visit Houston after much invitation. Imagine FD's reaction when JMJ say's "Yeah, actually I do think I could do a pretty special concert here!". Imagine being FD thinking about organizing the venue, the local arena...a football stadium perhaps. Then imagine hearing JMJ say "Yeah, I will beam projections on to that skyscraper there, and have fireworks launching off all those buildings there...and well put this massive stage in front of the Meridian hotel there!" FD. "How much are we going to charge for tickets?" City of Houston "Oh...we'll do it for free!!!" But Dreyfus still backed him, and it's naivety to imagine that didn't cost FDM as well as The City Of Houston. (I would dearly loved to have seen FD's expression when the scale of the concert dawned on him!lol)
So as well as giving Jarre the financial backing to build a studio and get this whole mega career off the ground, you back him at every turn. It's understandable that when that relationship comes to an end you would want to keep the revenue stream for all the material you paid for and published coming in for as long as possible.
I have no problem with FDM churning out re-releases, new versions of The Essential, New format versions of the old VHS releases. I have no problem with seeing anything licensed by FDM gaining him and his company an income. If you are honest about it, in his position you would want the same thing.
What is completely incorrect and immoral in my view is any attempt by FDM to gain control over Jean Michel Jarre's intellectual property, meaning everything he created. As an artist and as the imagineer of all those compositions, Jean Michel should retain the right to do whatever he want's with that material whenever he want's. There should be no effort to prevent performance of those songs by JMJ, and no attempt to gain financially from thirtieth anniversary edition of an album from which new masters are cut. FDM had the choice to re-release, and there equally should be no opposition from JMJ towards any reissue of masters licensed by FDM.
At the end of the day, Roger Waters and Pink Floyd reached an agreement about material, which resulted in Floyd thanking Waters after each performance of his songs. All it takes is for JMJ and FDM to credit each other where needed and they can all live happily ever after and still get paid where the royalties are concerned.
Let FDM release what he want's, we don't have to buy it, and anyone who does will get the same enjoyment as we did first time round. Jean Michel will still continue to create over time.
Si
