Editing Neu! 4 (section)

== Release ==
During the 1990s, the first three Neu! albums were available on CD on Germanofon Records, a dubious label allegedly based in [[Luxembourg]] who specialized in unauthorized and illegal reissues of otherwise unavailable krautrock albums.  Germanofon managed to get a number of their releases, including the three Neu! albums, into mainstream distribution. According to Rother's account, Dinger released ''Neu! 4'' "in an act of despair, so he says" in late 1995 as a response to the bootlegs, which Dinger railed against in the liner notes. ''Neu! 4'' was issued by the Japanese label [[Captain Trip Records]], without Rother's input, knowledge or consent. He only learned what had happened in a telegram congratulating him on the release of the album. Rother, writing in March 2007, described this experience as "a rather painful disaster between Klaus Dinger and myself".

The release of ''Neu! 4'' exacerbated the disagreements between Rother and Dinger, which prevented an official CD release of the first three Neu! albums until 2001. The 2000 agreement between Rother and Dinger which led to the CD releases on [[Astralwerks]] in the U.S. and [[Grönland Records]] in the UK and Europe called for ''Neu! 4'' to be recalled, and it has been out of print since then.

Despite Rother's continued objection to Dinger's original decision to release ''Neu! 4'' and his oft-stated opinion "that [''Neu! 4''] isn't a legal/real Neu! album", Rother had no objection to fans buying the CD secondhand and would always leave open the possibility that ''Neu! 4'' could be reissued legally with his consent in the future. Rother and Dinger did attempt to negotiate such a release after the official reissue of the first three albums. In March 2007, Rother termed the failure to reach such an agreement "unfortunate". With Dinger's death in 2008, such an agreement seemed unlikely.