"Fine, matt, but don't forget that many of us who have posted ad nauseam about this down the years wish to abide by the principle that Nic and all the others should get proper recompense for any of their stuff that goes out there."

Yeah, which is why I'd be perfectly happy to see one of those album filesharing blogs (Time Has Told Me et al) hosting those albums, only with a Paypal address below.

In this day and age "proper" recompense for recordings - especially niche folk recordings - isn't exactly going to be megabucks. A "pay what you can" to a Paypal address via a music blog strikes me as the ideal illegal but morally correct way to get round the Bulmer situation.

If I were ever in the position that an album I'd made (which I thought was actually really good) was being sat on and left to rot by an evil record label, I would just put it on Bandcamp, charge for it, and see them in court.

Some friends of mine who were in a hip-hop act in the 1990s noticed that copies of an out-of-print album of theirs (on a now-defunct record label) were going for a lot of money on eBay. So they bootlegged their own album - did a re-press.

Of course, you'd have to stick to your guns, cos I imagine Dave Bulmer is enough of a c**t to try to sue you if you did it. Which is why, in this instance, the illegal and fugitive nature of filesharing could actually work in musicians' favour in this one instance.

Has anyone ever, by the way, emailed Nic Jones or any of the other artists, and asked if they'd burn them a CDR (for cash)?

I'd really like to hear, for instance, the "John & Sandra" album, which I know is on Argo and a whole different kettle of unreleased fish, was thinking about emailing Sandra Kerr and asking if she'd make me a copy...