I signed away rights to the President and Fellows of Harvard College (the legal name in this context for Harvard). That was not a problem as it was clear to me that this would not be a money-maker for anyone. The business-side was handled by Eisenbrauns, a small publisher. When the owner retired, the business sold to Penn State. Later, the Harvard Semitic Museum (the part of Harvard in charge of the series) sold the rights to Brill. I am guessing that Harvard Semitic Museum saw this as a chance to get a little bit of money out of their asset, and Brill saw this as a cow to milk to death, the way the price for legacy software is raised to sky-high levels as the product dies. And indeed, I am guessing that Brill is not making much -- no one did. https://www.sspnet.org/community/news/brill-announces-collab...
It was 25 years ago, so I don't remember. However, even if today I could get all my rights back -- indeed, if I could get compensated for a reasonable author's royalty going back to the start -- the amount of money would not be worth noticing.
