Unfortunately, it seems like there's always a chance something could go wrong. But this first step with Universal will let me know if there are any issues, at least from the legal perspective. It really consists of them reviewing the original contract from 1982 and determining the fee required (from me) based on that, as long as they see no roadblocks. But it's just a guessing game when they will actually review the request. As mentioned in the other thread, Sony have clearly stated it's all about priority when it comes to the legal review, but she did tell me a good estimate is 3 months, give or take a little. I'm hoping Universal are similar. The sales manager originally asked me to check in with him at the end of September to see if legal reviewed the request (it was sent to them on September 11), but they had not yet. And as recently as last week, he responded to my latest inquiry by stating that legal are likely working on higher priority requests at the moment. But it's been in their queue now for 2 months so we can only hope the review is coming soon.
I just got off the phone with Dane Conover. What a nice and friendly guy. He said another label wanted to release the album about 15 years or so ago but at that time Universal wanted a unit guarantee well into the 5 figures, which just wasn't realistic. Nowadays, I can release it from Universal with a 1500 unit guarantee. Dane has a load of period material that he is going to let me review for bonus tracks. I hope to cram the CD to the maximum with unreleased goodies. But we still have to wait for Universal's initial response.