Hmmm, shouldn't `$table` be referring back to the original `edit`? From my crappy in-brain database, it seems like if I did a search for "artist is not Nirvana", I wouldn't get any results at all because:

    NOT EXISTS (SELECT TRUE FROM edit_artist edit_entity WHERE edit_entity.artist = $nirvana)
      =
    NOT EXISTS (TRUE)
      =
    NOT TRUE
      =
    FALSE

And that `FALSE` holds for anything, regardless of your original query. Is that right, or have I misunderstood something?