Very interesting, Lars, thanks. And JBaent, you may very well be right about the old Dire Straits contract having expired by the time the "Sultans" collection came out. But still, if David Knopfler owns part of the copyright for those old songs, I can't see how they could take that away from him. It's only fair that he doesn't get paid for songs from the MM/LOG/BIA/OES era, of course, but he should have gotten something for the the early ones. And he probably did, I don't know. Ed Bicknell may be very smart, and Mark may just not care, but neither of them are evil, I guess.
Another thing was discussed here and there was the song "Wild West End". Not sure if I'm correct, but didn't David sort of claim that he had co-written or even written that one? And that the record sleeve should have said so? Even if that's true, he should have complained back then, of course ...