It's rather sad to see traditional songs being discussed in terms of copyright - sign of the times, I suppose.
I'm sure Bulmer and those who came after have God (and the laws of copyright) on their side, but it goes against the spirit of sharing the music that I knew the folk song revival I belonged to used to be.
Now, it seems, the issue of ownership over-rides the principle of 'passing the music on'.
I still get angry at the thought that the impoverished Travelling man who gave us some ouf our great versions of traditional ballads, died of malnutrition in a derelict house in Roscommon, while a well-heeled musician who has virtually no interest in the tradition owns rights to one of our rarest ballads - funny old world!!
I know that some of Leader's sources were not part of the oral tradition, other than having borrowed from it, but some where.
The approach we always took to every old singer was recorded was, "If it's not passed on, it will die" - with out exception, they accepted that and freely gave us what we wanted, and we kept our end of the bargain by passing on what we were given.
Maybe not a "funny old world" - just a sad one.
Jim Carroll