It looks like music publishers may be just as fed up with the restrictions iTunes imposes on the use of legally purchased music as everyone else is.

Jon Johansen -- yes, that Jon Johansen -- points to an interesting post over in the Hymn forums by a user calling himself "laudmusic." Writes the user, "I work for major music publisher. We buy and convert files from ITMS as it's cheaper than buying a whole CD from a one-stop when we need a master of a song we control. Would love to have it AppleScriptable so I can incorporate Hymn into our creative system."

Johansen's search for "laudmusic" turned up Michael Lau at Warner/Chappell Music, Inc., which bills itself as a "premiere music publishing company" with "tenfold growth in revenue over the past decade."

Asks Johansen, "Did Warner/Chappell's legal department review the iTMS TOS and come to the conclusion that it's not worth the paper it's, uhm, not written on? ;-)"