Steve Latimer writes: "Borrowing traditional melodies is part of the folk process." Perhaps, when folk music was something passed along by oral/aural transmission and sung on back porches instead of on stages, folks felt free to dip into the melodic stream that flowed around them. that was "borrowing." Taking a tune that is the property of all of the inheritors of the tradition (us), and then claiming ownership by copyright, is NOT part of the folk process. When "art" becomes "commodity," the process is something else entirely and invites exploitation.

I knew I should have avoided this thread!

Sandy (folk fogey)