A while ago, I was recommended to someone looking for "new" musical acts to videotape and put on small-time TV. (Local cable access, plus streaming on his personal website, if I'm not mistaken.)

When I admitted that I didn't write my own songs, he blew me off immediately. Said he wouldn't/couldn't pay royalties for anyone's compositions, and routinely asked singer/songwriters to waive any right to collect money for singing their own stuff on his videos.

He called back later and said, well, maybe if you can do a full set of songs all in the public domain, we could work something out...

Nothing ever came of this, but it set me to wondering. My repertoire includes a number of old folksongs that probably qualify as "public domain," but in at least a few cases, the piece that I've learned to perform is copied as closely as possible from a particular artist's recording ~ for example, say, Mississippi John Hurt's version of C.C. Rider.

Would I "owe" MJH's estate for performing my imitation of his version of an uncopyrighted song?

From a strictly personal moral/ethical viewpoint, I would feel absolutely no obligation to pay off John's granddaughter in a case where I'm making little or no money. After all, like lots of people, I do a whole bunch of Bob Dylan songs without making any appreciable profit in the process, and don't even think about mailing off checks to The Bob.

On the other hand, I might feel that I should make some reasonable payment to the Hurt estate if I were to turn such a performance into a money-making hit record ~ fat chance of that, of course!

But I realize that legality does not always coincide with one's moral or ethical judgement. Can an instrumental arrangement of a traditionnal song, or a particular set of verses put into a particular order in the manner of some earlier artist, be subject to royalty obligations even when the song title is public domain?