We have commissioned him to make custom music for our game but is not comfortable with giving us the rights to the music.

I have a question. When you say about giving the rights to the music, you mean rights of use and distribution or giving authorship? I ask because they are different things and that non-artist people often confuse as the same thing, and artists often don't want to give authorship (unless, sometimes, if it isn't for a really big $).

We have commissioned him to make custom music for our game but is not comfortable with giving us the rights to the music.

I have a question. When you say about giving the rights to the music, you mean rights of use and distribution or giving authorship? I ask because they are different things and that non-artist people often confuse as the same thing, and artists often don't want to give authorship (unless, sometimes, if it isn't for a really big $).

I just want to let everyone here know that we resolved our situation mainly because yes, we wanted rights and distribution rights of the recordings and he wanted authorship rights. So he gave us the former and kept the latter and we have a few more caveats but otherwise got everything we all wanted.

Thank you again everyone for all your help.