I fully understand Mike Yates', Fred McCormick's and Jim Carroll's point of view on this. However I've listened to a few of Sam Callow's tracks on Soundcloud and it seems to me that he's coming from a very different musical background, one in which sampling other recordings is part of its own culture. He appears to have approached this with a genuine love of the music, but from a background which regards existing recordings as a resource to be used, and without understanding the significance they have for others. He is also part of a culture which rightly or wrongly sees it as normal to share music via the internet without proper consideration of the rights and legalities involved.

Sam and Francesco now understand that they made a mistake and caused offence, but I believe this was not intentional. I think they have acted entirely honourably in admitting their mistake and correcting it without quibble, and by removing the offending recordings. The point has been made and taken, and any further protest would I think be an over-reaction.

I'm sure this is not the first time source recordings have been used in this way, and I wonder whether this would have caused the same outrage if the accompaniments had been more sensitively done than was apparently the case, or if they had been by a more established artist in the UK. After all, the much-praised "Full English" album includes a track where Joseph Taylor's "Brigg Fair" segues into an instrumental fantasia around the tune - no one seems to have objected to that, and it was "Best Album" at the BBC Folk Awards.