All we can say is, if Ronald McDonald is as touchy about people leaking corporate secrets as Steve Jobs is, he's probably giving the Hamburglar orders to whack the CEO of EMI even as you read this. You probably recall that a couple of weeks ago the New York Post reported that McDonald's was in talks to out-Pepsi Pepsi by launching a promotion wherein it would give away one billion free song downloads from the iTunes Music Store; almost immediately, McDonald's issued a statement to the press denying that such a deal existed and stating in no uncertain terms that "there are no agreements to announce, so anything else is pure speculation." (Notice how it doesn't deny that an iTMS deal might be in negotiations. Clever.)

Well, MacRumors somehow managed to dig up a webcast from EMI's Group Interim Results presentation this morning, and reportedly 38 minutes in, CEO Martin Bandier discusses legal music download services and then serves up this doozy of a quote: "There is real potential for the future, especially when Pepsi Cola makes a commitment to give away up to 100 million downloads and McDonald's commits to 1 billion in download giveaways as part of a promotional campaign." To which we can only reply, hmmmmmm.

Okay, we lied-- we can actually reply a lot more than that. It's just that now we've got this vivid mental image of an enraged Ronald McDonald swearing a blue streak as he puts a hit on Bandier and the Hamburglar saying "Robble Robble" as he gleefully pours acid on the brake line in Bandier's car.

It's a little distracting, to say the least.

So what do you think? Is Bandier in on the deal, or is he just a guy who happens to read the New York Post? Considering he heads up one of the Big Five music labels, there's every chance that he's hep to massive special deals brewing secretly in iTMS County-- so maybe the deal is real and Bandier just slipped and blabbed it to the world. On the other hand, any such promotional deal would probably be negotiated entirely between McDonald's and Apple, so there's no particular reason EMI would need to be involved in the slightest. Basically, it can go either way, and we won't know for sure until either this McDonald's deal comes to pass or we all grow old and die without ever seeing a commercial for "McTunes."

Actually, we suppose there might be one more way to tell what's what: we could listen to the actual webcast in hopes of unearthing more clues. We're currently far too lazy to bother, however, but if you're game to give it a try, we like you so much we'll even tell you what to listen for: right after Bandier mentions the McDonald's deal, if he pauses and then says, "wait, did I just say that last part out loud?" then it's a pretty good bet that there's a mighty miffed clown out there putting a price on his head.