The real fly in the ointment, of course, is that people say they collected songs from traditional singers who were often engaged in singing them in the public domain anyway.

Loads of the recordings of Harry Cox in the British Library, for example, were made in the local pub. Sure enough, recording the songs has some considerable value in allowing people to hear them more generally (though not too many of us end up in the BL listening) but just who was collecting them exactly and what for?

Thoughts of birds eggs and butterflies on pins spring to mind.

;-)
Ian