According to Conlon, the struggles that Devon Baker faces on the road are emblematic of the difficulties faced by P.R.O.’s as a whole. “The dance that happens between the salesperson and a reluctant nightclub owner,” he says, “is the same dance that happens all the way up the food chain, to the New York boardrooms of the biggest media companies in the world. Where the bar owner might have a shotgun and a dog and say, Beat it! Go away or I’ll shoot you in the head, the more sophisticated iteration is done with teams of lawyers, pitted against each other, quibbling over niceties of copyright law.” The battles can be fierce — and the outcome uncertain. When ASCAP sued Verizon, claiming it was owed additional royalties on ringtones for which Verizon had already paid a licensing fee, it lost. But when Weigel Broadcasting Company challenged the license rates for two local stations as excessive, they lost and had to pay BMI $1.4 million in back fees. “The arguments don’t change,” Conlon continued. “No one’s an eager purchaser. People do believe in copyright. But the tensions in making that money flow are universal and constant. They don’t want to pay!”

Devon Baker works alongside about 24 other licensing executives on the fifth floor of an office in Nashville, where most of BMI’s 600 employees are based. It looks, at first blush, like any province in cubicle land. Except the men are all in ties. Facial hair, tattoos, but ties. It’s a throwback, a stipulation from a former president and C.E.O., Frances Preston, that all male BMI representatives respect the line between artists and their representatives. Artists make music; BMI representatives handle money.

Collectively, Baker and her colleagues make about a million calls a year. Most of these are repeats, a fact that gets at the firm’s peculiar, slow-boil form of suasion. Rather than initiating legal action, BMI and other P.R.O.’s prefer a kill-them-with-patience approach that can take dozens of phone calls, letters and as long as 10 years.

One afternoon, I sat with Baker at her cubicle. Besides pictures of her fiancé, Mike, and her nieces, she also has a smiley-face chart. Her boss made it up for all the licensing executives, to remind them that their moods and their tones will determine their success. The chart is like a traffic light. There’s a green smiley face, a straight face in yellow, then a face in red, frowning. “You never wanna be on the red,” Baker said.

Baker’s computer, which runs on proprietary software, dialed an adult club in Maryland. BMI, she told me, had been pursuing the owner for four years. Over this time, he claimed that the club had no cover charge, that his staff never put money in the jukebox and that there was no drink minimum. ­“Which I guess we found is not the case,” Baker said, smiling, referring to a part-time field agent who was unable to corroborate the owner’s claims. Baker straightened her headset. “I hope we get him on the phone.”

He answered. Baker informed him that his previous excuses didn’t hold water. After some squirming, he announced that from now on, he just wouldn’t use BMI’s music — only ASCAP’s: he was going to remove every BMI song from every karaoke machine, CD and iPod mix that would ever be played in his club. Right. Baker made a note to check back. A few hours later the owner called to say he’d pay.

Next, she tried to track down a Utah restaurant owner who has never had the money — he says — to pay for a license. Meanwhile, his business has grown from three restaurants to seven. She then called a Mexican restaurant in Georgia. Very polite — but the owner was not around. Because the owner was never around. Finally, she called a bar owner in Massachusetts. He sounded down on his luck; he said he understood the idea of music rights, and in fact, used to play in bands and even wrote a few songs himself. But unfortunately, he had no money. Baker made a note to call back.