Well, round 2 went down today. Spoke to an attorney for The Harry Fox Agency today. There story is that they are no obligated to provide us with specifics until they file charges. All they would tell me is that one or more of there thousands of Publishers has complained and they won't even tell me which one(s).

Very circular argument.

They say: Provide us with a list of all songs in your database that are not public domain, and we will then tell you what you have to do.

I say: tell me what my options will be once I do this.

They say: You have to talk to the CEO for that info and he has nothing to say till you provide us with the list.

I say: Can I buy some sort of license from you to work this out?

They say: You'll have to talk to the CEO, We won't know that till you send us the list.

I say: OK, what is the CEO's #.

They say: You cannot talk to him.

I say: I want you to tell me what is objectionable, then I will have insight in which to ponder this.

They say: We only have to provide that information if we file charges, and we don't want to do that for your sake. You don't want this to go to court do you? You are braking the law, not only civily, but also criminally, you could go to jail. All we are trying to do is help you. We want you to have a legal site so you can help bring attention and press to music, because we love music and what you do is good for music.

I say: Well, I will have to think about this because not only is this a legal decision for me, it is also a moral decision, because I know what I am doing is right and what you are doing is wrong.

They say: What you are doing is illegal. What you are doing is a crime and we are the police, and I doubt you would be arguing like this to a police officer.

I say: Wanna bet?

They say: You do have the right to ignore us and negotiate with the publishers individually.

I say: OK, great, which ones have issues, I choose to negotiate with them independently.

They say: We are not obligated to say, so you will have to contact all 22,000 of them.

I say: I read about how you keep crushing lyric sites, just trying to be helpful?

They say: We're only trying to help people be legal.

I say: And it has nothing to do with your for profit lyric server with banner ads and such?

They say: We only represent the music publishers in our association.

I wanted to say: How to you sleep at night? Or do you believe your own lies?

If we provide the list, we are basically saying "Here is all the ways we are breaking the law." These bastards got this down, they know how to fawk with us, no doubt. I could tell, that they were running me in circles on purpose. This is a strategy.

They kept trying to get me to guarantee a call back within a week too.

I said: Am I obligated by law to do so, or is this a threat? If so, please send me a certified letter telling me when I must respond by before it hits the fan.

They say: No, your not obligated, but for your benefit, we don't want this to go on forever.

We ended the call, and I was angry. It is a clever strategy, and not one that seems to give us much option. And my efforts to penetrate the legal mumbo jumbo to get to the deeper meaning of this failed. She wavered, but did not crack. I think she (the lawyer) saw me as defiant, and probably noted so to the HFA. I guess I will call them back next Thursday, so here we go… what do you all think?