>>jprd+(OP)
My understanding is he doesn’t have to ask permission but does for two purposes. It’s important to him to keep good relationships with artists, and he wants to make sure that he gets songwriting credits because those are paid differently (and are often more lucrative) than royalties from recordings.
I’d love to find out if he directly pays artists for rights. That would be really interesting and would add a whole dimension to his problems with Prince.