Chapter 113: Three More Years of His Voice
I signed for three more years of Oliver's voice and not one extra word.
On Wednesday, twenty-seven master identifiers filled the rights team's listening-room screen.
They belonged only to the six existing Blackwater Rooms audio editions.
The December renewal had already fixed the three-year term and deleted the unfinished-volume audio option. The December schedule remained the operative licence, so no fresh signature could move its commencement or expiry dates.
Today's annex incorporated that schedule into the retirement package without restarting or extending its expiry.
The rights officer made that timing visible before the first sample played.
I listened through headphones to selected openings, scene changes and closing credits. The sample plan drew from every edition to test identifier, credit and maintenance boundaries separately without replaying all twenty-seven recordings.
Oliver's voice still carried dialogue we had shaped years before our separation.
The sound did not become less his performance because hearing it hurt.
Nor did his performance make every surrounding sentence his sole work.
Each master row named its book, session and current platform format.
No row named a seventh volume, new script or independent project.
The maintenance clause allowed noise repair, accessibility conversion and platform-compliant encoding.
It did not allow fresh narration, substituted scenes or extended endings.
A rights assistant demonstrated the difference with a proposed technical repair ticket.
The ticket could clean a damaged recording but could not insert newly written words.
Any textual change would require a separate dual-signature agreement.
The same rule applied to trailers and retrospective introductions.
The publisher could advertise the existing editions with existing approved assets.
It could not ask Oliver to record a new Marian Crowe presentation.
I checked the credit field attached to every selected master.
It read PERFORMED BY OLIVER ELLISON in the full platform display.
Restricted displays linked to the same complete rights page.
The credit identified a genuine performance without expanding it into sole authorship.
I approved that accuracy again in the final annex.
Oliver's solicitor approved the no-new-recording boundary on his behalf.
The rights officer then displayed the fixed commencement and expiry dates from the December schedule.
Today's signature confirmed incorporation only; it created no second three-year period.
At expiry, continued use would require both original creators' written approval.
Silence, platform continuity or one party's request could not renew the licence automatically.
The archive would issue notices six months and sixty days before expiry.
Those notices created time to decide, not a presumption of renewal.
Existing purchasers would retain whatever continuing access the current platform contracts lawfully protected. The platform access note described continuity only; it offered no permanent term and no unilateral renewal right.
The rights team would address that access within the fixed licence rather than promise permanence today.
I signed the annex beside the closed list of twenty-seven identifiers.
No microphone booking or blank master row followed my signature.
Two archive officers checked that the unfinished-volume option remained marked DELETED.
They also checked that no `successor`, `presents` or new-series wording entered the audio schedule.
The certified annex went to both solicitors in identical read-only form.
The original remained with North Quay's neutral rights archive.
I received no listener histories or private platform performance data.
I knew only the lawful editions, term, permitted maintenance and credit.
Keeping the recordings available preserved continuity for readers who had already paid.
It also preserved a voice I could not remove from my own professional history.
The fixed expiry stopped that compromise from becoming an endless new partnership.
At 15:18, the officer closed the listening programme and opened the pen-name retirement draft.
Its future-use section still awaited a binding promise from Oliver.
His solicitor confirmed that Oliver would permanently surrender new use of Marian Crowe.
He required one condition before signing it.
The historical contribution statement could not call me the sole author.