tO HOOTENANY, I have replied to malcolm douglas in a personal message. to Nutty...
Subject: RE: Reflections/Criticism of Peter Kennedy
From: Fred McCormick - PM
Date: 19 Sep 06 - 04:34 AM

In the case of Peter Kennedy and his alleged royalty expropriation, I believe the question of royalties extended to mechanical performance only. IE., reproduction of the singer or musician's performance, or what we nowadways describe as their intellectual property. In other words, Peter Kennedy had no right to release recordings of other people without seeking permission of them or their descendants, and without paying royalties.

Folksongs are, by their very nature, in the public domain. They belong to all of us and that makes a nonsense of the idea that they can or should be copyrighted.

Not that such considerations ever bothered Kennedy.
SO fred says without paying royalties,i am asking how much were they deprived of [ or how much was taken ..stolen by kennedy.please nutty read the posts carefully.
logically if folk songs belong to all of us, Kennedy has as much right as the source singer to copyright them.
if an enterprising source singer copyrighted them, would you be condemning him in the same way as you are kennedy.
folksongs have been written at some point, alot of them by broadsheet writers, they are not the intellectual property of the source singer or the collector, if they are arranged then the composer of the arrangement owns the copyright to the arrangement only.