DKC Atlas Forum

David Wise will always be remembered for his DKC compositions but what I would like to know is about who actually holds the rights to the music? I know Nintendo own the rights to the DK franchise but I'm not sure whether that includes the music. Now that David Wise has left Rare and is now freelance, can he reclaim the rights for his compositions if Nintendo own full rights of them. Also, does he get royalties for his music being used in DKC Returns and other post-Rare games.

Those are good questions, my guess is that nintendo owns the rights, so he got paid already back in 1995 and that's all he got out of it. He did a great job though, Dkc 2 has my favorite game soundtrack of all time, must look really good on his resume.
Sucks he wasn't back for Dkc 3, even though that soundtrack was really good too I always wonder how different would it had been if he had worked on it too.

David did the GBA version of DKC3's soundtrack. Very different from the original and felt like DKC music.