I read the message in rec.music.celtic. This is part of it:

"This is a CDROM containing over 8500 lyrics and 6500 tunes from all over the world (but mainly from Ireland). The disc also contains over 20 demo, shareware and freeware music software packages including Sibelius, the Cakewalk collection, Mozart, Noteworthy Composer, Midiscan and Smartscore and the 3 famous ABC packages - ABC2WIN, ABCPLAYER and ABCMUS. The tunes are in various formats : abc, mid, GIFs and the Digital Tradition. The lyrics are in Word .doc format and the Digital Tradition."

While I won't comment on the copyright issue, it sounds like he did a bunch of work. Website here: http://www.g8ina.enta.net\irish.htm