A friend and incredible song writer told me a few months ago NOT to put his songs on the web because they weren't in "fixed form". I expect this means he hadn't written down the notes. He mentioned problems Elizabeth Cotten had with "Freight Train." Now I quote from RUS, page 233:

Libba Cotten...composed this song and taught it to the Seegers and other folk artists in the New York area. Some English folk singers learned the song from the latter, adapted it slightly and filed copyright forms for the song. Libba was unable to win the rights back to her song in the '50s.

RUS lists her estate as holding the copyright so maybe she eventually got the rights back, or at least she got the US rights.

I don't think copyright is as clear as, "Joe wrote it, Joe owns it." A folk afficionado once assured me that even though "arrangements" could be copyrighted, simple chords could NOT be copyrighted, probably because chords alone can be played in so many different ways. I've also heard that information can't be copyrighted -- to the consternation of the phone companies who want everyone to dial 4-1-1.

The laws vary from country to country. Until recently, amateurs in Canada could get away without paying royalties even when they performed copyrighted songs on television. Changing this law wiped out a few popular local TV programs.

My hope and expectation is that even if the soulless ones manage to shut down sites like Digital Tradition and OLGA in the United States (that damned Harry Fox Agency has gotten some more OLGA sites closed down), there will continue to be safe haven for them somewhere on the net.