I am not sure that my point has got through.

1. Would the ARRANGER's rights necessarily have been signed away by the performer? - I don't think so, but I am not a lawyer. I believe that anyone else using these arrangements (and in some cases tunes) would have to make some royalty payment to the owner of the copyright. Does that hold for the issued sound recordings?

2. Therefore, as far as I can tell, whoever issues CDR's should be paying at least the arranger's royalties.

3. The MCPS collect these royalties on behalf of the copyright owner, and base their distribution on the number of copies created.

4. MCPS know exactly how many are pressed, if genuine CD's but they have no way to count the number of CDR's burned. This has been put forward as a reason for CDR in the first place. I believe it is not too expensive to get proper CD's pressed in the small quantity which a folk release would require (I am sure have seen quotes for 500 or 1000.)

5. If the MPCS logo is not present, then they have obviously not been paid, therefore the copyright owners will not get anything.

6. If it is present, then MCPS should know how many are created.

7. If the MCPS find that someone is not paying up on just ONE CDR issue, how many of their other members are also being cheated by the same organisation? Would the MCPS take action? They have deeper pockets than the composers, and exist to enforce their members' rights anyway.

SO do the CDR's in question have the MCPS logo? So far, no-one has answered that question.