Jim, I hear what you are saying, and in the 'olden days' when the majority of 'folk' music was genuinely traditional, known and sung mainly by 'source' singers, and you were first collecting and promoting these works for a wider audience, your point would have been entirely valid. If you had, as some did, claimed those songs as your own property, and restricted access to them so you could gain revenue, you would indeed have been privatising public property.

But Anne's albums are NOT public property, and never were. And anyway we've moved on.

The 'folk' world is now chockablock with new material that belongs firmly to its makers - for the very good reeasons Anahata and Anne have explained. Like the rest of the music and arts industry, and indeed the business world in general, we now have an entire infrastructure of performers, record companies, magazines, venues, festivals, web sites and the rest, some of whom rely on folk music for a living, all of whom rely on folk music for survival - and need at least some money to be changing hands.

Now I think from past posts that you might be one of those who'd prefer folk music to be largely traditionally-based, and moreover largly free of the taint of the filthy lucre? I can see how nice that might be, but it's not going to happen, and as such it's not relevant to this discussion - which is about a very real and threatening problem for professionals (who exist because people want us to, ok)?

Now, as Anne knows from a previous discussion elsewhere, I'm reasonably relaxed about people pirating my stuff, and willing to let recordings fly in the wind in the hope that they will bring people to my gigs and maybe proper CD sales in future, and so compensate in the long run for the lost revenue - but if this had happened to me I'd have been in there with a lawyer as fast as a knife.

Why? Because it's a matter of principle. That blogger was effectively holding the door open to Anne's house and saying to any passing hoody - hey step inside and help yourself.

And that's just plain wrong.

Tom