Making his back catalog public domain may not have been an option. It depends on the contracts he signed with the record labels at the time he wrote and recorded the songs. There are also separate copyrights on the songs themselves and on the recordings. Regardless, the root problem is the ridiculous length of copyright, and that’s not an issue Bruce created, nor can he fix it by releasing his works into the public domain. And I would rather the artist profit from their work than the record companies. Comparing Tom Lehrer to Springsteen is like comparing Manhattan, Kansas to Manhattan, New York. I doubt any record company exec cared when Tom Lehrer released his works into the public domain. Bruce doing so would probably result in multiple lawsuits.
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