People originally started collecting and publishing folk songs because they realized that they were disappearing from this earth forever. What a great service Child, Sharp, the Lomaxes and so many others have done for future generations by preserving the songs of our ancesters. The printing press is one of humanity's greatest gifts, and preserving these treasures has been one of it's most valuable uses. Putting volumes of old songs on public library shelves and teaching them in the public schools is a continuing source of inspiration for each new generation. They're folk songs and they belong to everybody. Everyone has a right to do them in their own style and in their own way, to add to them, change them around, rewrite them, reinterpret them and reinvent them. And we can be thankful that the source material, the written representation of the state they were in when the song collector first discovered them, will always be there for folks to learn from.