We collect for archiving purposes and for our own personal research. Over the last thirty years we have not had a problem with 'ownership' of songs as, up to the present there has been no question of the songs and stories being worth anything financially. On the few occasions we have issued anything publicly, the fact that we have prepared the ground beforehand with the people we collected from and have, where possible, kept them informed with what we are doing, has meant that so far we have never been challenged over our use of the material. We have met any possible problems by donating any money arising from the productions to, in the case of our Irish recordings, The Irish Traditional Music Archive and the UK ones, the National Sound Archive at the British Library.   Where I have heard of collectors meeting with problems, (apart from the Kennedy saga, which has been covered sufficiently elsewhere), this has not been with the singers and storytellers themselves (who by and large are now dead), but with relatives. I actually heard someone say of a friend of mine 'my grandfather's songs put him through university'.
As amateur collectors, we have worked at our own pace and have chosen to work longer with a few singers rather than adopt the 'in, record and out' technique, the result being that we have got to know the people who have recorded quite well; some of them have become close friends.
I firmly believe that most problems arise from not keeping your informants informed over the use of the material. Most of the people we have recorded have been as anxious as we are that the songs and stories should survive.
Our involvement with music, rather than song has been a somewhat casual one, but I suspect that, due to the boom in traditional music here in Ireland, things are about to change radically.
Already there are moves afoot to cash in on this popularity and the combined actions of Comhaltas and the Irish Musical Rights Organisation (IMRO) is beginning to generate hostility.
An interesting work covering the situation, 'Beyond The Commons' by Anthony McCann, was published in 2002 and is well worth a look.
Jim Carroll
PS (Not strictly on subject, so feel free to edit this out if you think it is intruding Joe). My friend and neighbour, Tom Munnelly a collector for the Irish Folklore Department, is undoubtedly one of the all-time great field workers (20,000 songs in his collection). Tom is quite ill at present and some of us have put together a festschrift of 24 essays in his honour. Details are to be found on the O.A.C (Oidhreacht An Chláir) website.
Tom is due to be awarded an honourary doctorate at Galway University in a couple of weeks time.