I agree with the thoughts expressed by hand in glove, Harsh Truth, Irregular Regular and others. Instead of exposing the supposed villainy of Universal, all this back and forth has really done is make Morrissey and co. seem petty and opportunistic. With every installment of this ridiculous feud, the supposed altruistic nature of Morrissey's intentions grows increasingly dubious. The letter from Reid plainly states Universal would likely be willing to license the song back to Morrissey for re-release through a third party with proceeds going to relevant charities. This may not be what Morrissey originally had in mind, but it is in no way a denial. I struggle to think why this option wouldn't be good enough and worth pursuing for someone genuinely interested in paying a tribute to the victims of the attacks in Paris. He used a third party, Atom Factory, to release the Kiss Me a Lot single. What's the problem now? And why the peculiar emphasis on chart position in the original letter?
Maybe more letters will materialize, letters in which a Universal spokesperson explicitly denies any kind of release or licensing to Morrissey, but these letters don't incriminate Universal, they help their case. Morrissey, on the other hand, continues to dig himself deeper, as we now have two instances of Universal apparently offering to release the single that have gone ignored in favor of drumming up controversy with a needless smear campaign, capitalizing on a tragedy to do so.