"No, mine was not a form letter" writes "A Publisher". Very intyeresting. This browser.s wonderful little "find" thingy has just confirmed that the only time this expression has been used previously in this thread was in my last posting, when it specifically referred to the original letter from the Harry Fox agency that started all this stuff off.

So either "A Publisher" is the person who drafted the original letter - or s/he is just misunderstanding what I wrote, and took it as referring to the first "A Publisher" posting on the thread (wich would be a bit odd, since nobody could have taken that for a "form letter".

In either case, the point made in the second coming of publisher that: "And I nor my company can give you the right to use printed versions of our copyrighted material. That is because we have an agreement with Hal Leonard, whom we have given the EXCLUSIVE right to use printed versions of our lyrics" calls for the obvious response that in this case, all that would be called for would be for the company to tell Hal Leonard, whoever Hal Leonard may be, that they would have no objection to Hal Leonard allowing the lyrics to be included in the Digital Tradition.

Of course the question whether "printed" covers stuff on a website is an interesting one. Does this really mean it would be all right if they were written out by hand and included as pictures?

Several people have suggested in this thread that there is something to be said for copyright in relation to folksongs, or at least modern songs in the folk tradition. This is an interesting topic, that I think deserves a thread of its own, away from the legal ins and outs of this particular dispute. So I'm starting one up - "BS Copyright and folk", because I think it might be a good idea to keep this one dealing directly with how Max should respond to this pressure from Foxy and Co, and how 'Catters can help out.