Good to see posts on this topic this morning. I was afraid it was going to fizzle out. Sorry for being deliberately provocative but really this is THE most important task we face in the 21st century. As piracy decimates the major music industries on the one side, and media pressures attempt to water down traditional material from the other, while issues like The White Hare attempt to explode it from within, this needs urgently to be sorted, as GUEST Someone Else says.

The 'Neigh'-sayers perhaps want to be able to treat all folk material the same - as their own. But it cannot be morally right to deny writers their dues, plus any blurring of the line between original and anon must lead to a dumbing-down of historical culture, and the loss of vital signposts to our past.

My understanding is also that the PRS make no distinction between Anon, Traditional, Out of Copyright and Public Domain, and I've had this confirmed during the White Hare investigation. Because any legal dispute will tend to involve PRS we can assume that their definitions are based on law and prededent. Richard may know better - but I've been told very clearly that a work resistered as trad, or published as trad (not the same thing) rather than trad/arr, will be de facto public domain/out of copyright, and that this carries legal weight. Trad/arr works are free to use, but may incur royalities if your arrangement can be proved to be identical (unlikely).

The Procul Harum case did not turn on Out of Copyright issues.