Ron Olesko
The collector in question had donated proceedings from the recordings to a Traveller's education programme. He sent copies of those recordings to Kennedy as a fellow collector for his interest (they were probably the most important recordings of ballad singing in the field).
Kennedy issued them commercially without permission, never paid for them and persistently ignored requests to remove them from his catalogue (this dates back thirty years). They remained in that catalogue up to Kennedy's death and presumably are still there.
Cap'n
What you appear to be saying is that as long as you are supplied with material it doesn't particulary matter to you how it was obtained, rather like it doesn't matter which sweat-shop your cheap tee-shirt came from - hmm - I'll have to think about that one.
By the way, I wasn't having a pop at you - I presume you're not 'Guest, Captain Birdseye's Arsewipe'. I thought I recognised the style of the writer of that pearl of wisdom as that of one of out leading traditional music academics.
Jim Carroll