One point I've made earlier is that the creators of 'folk songs'are often more easily identified that you'd think, and if you look in the right places they are sometimes clearly identified. We seem to want to take some songs into mass ownership, and instinctively suppress the creator's name. Pete M, if your design or system is copied and used by someone other than the person who paid you for your work, and that other person keeps the design fee, and may even claim to have been the designer, what is your position? Why should the maker of a song not be paid, when the designer of a soup can gets a fee every time a new can is made? When a song is sung it is in a sense remade, and often amended from the maker's intentions. The maker cannot claim all of all versions, but the man who invented the biro pen (called Biro I suspect) probably gets something every time his method is applied to a new kind of pen along the same principles. I make most of my money from other sources than songwriting. People fail to pay me for use of my songs all the time. They ignore the laws of the land on this. I don't mind because I'm used to it, and the people who do not pay are either issuing their own recordings (for which they insist on cash money, by the way) or record company sharks. But if you feel my intellectual property should be yours as well in common ownership, you won't mind if I borrow your car some time without telling you, now will you? Common wealth is common wealth.