Bert, Max has only spoken to the lawyers in charge of bashing people over the head in a friendly manner designed to help because they love music, not the lawyers in charge of explaining things and helping people get licenses. If they refer everyone they threaten to the second group, there would be a diminished need for head-bashing and this could threaten their jobs. I think you need to pursue the license separately and talk to different people.

Edward P. Murphy is the CEO of NMPA.

Contacts in the NMPA including e-mail addresses of the licensing department. There is also a phone number for questions about HFA or a license request. Here's the e-mail addy for the Intenet Licensing Information Department: :ihotline@harryfox.com

Here's an article on the lawsuit NMPA vs the International Lyrics Server, which states:<br>

Murphy regrets that this issue has come to litigation, but, noting that at least one publisher spent over a year attempting to secure the voluntary cooperation of ILS to enter into licensing negotiations, asserts "it is the only recourse left to our publisher members and their songwriter partners."

and

"NMPA is optimistic that the Swiss judiciary will rule that under local Swiss copyright laws, diminishing or destroying the value of a musical work is as injurious as stealing it and selling it directly for profit," continued Murphy, noting that ILS includes advertising on its website, proving that it is indeed profiting monetarily from the theft of songs. "This is a crucially important and unprecedented internet case," Murphy concluded, "and NMPA intends to support it with all necessary energy and resources. Songwriters and copyright owners of every size and at every income level are severely injured by such widespread, unauthorized use of their works."

Please note, folks, Max knows I'm not giving legal advice, and I don't think he's going to hare off and follow every suggestion. What we're doing here is brainstorming and offering opinions. I have a tendency to try to play devil's advocate and try to understand where the other guy's coming from before I jump on anybody's bandwagon. The more I look at this issue, the more I think it's a case of the guys on the other side thinking they're doing the right thing and having made a gross error in judgement. While some of us need to see them as evil in order to better fight them, they are doing the same thing with us.