I'm not quite sure why Jim makes a distinction between "tradition bearers" and "professionals". A big advantage of the PRS policy of allowing arrangement royalties for for professional performers who sing traditional songs is that such a policy offers a financial incentive to perform traditional material. To the extent that this keeps the songs alive, that can't be a bad thing, and it make the performer the song carrier. It's unfortunate that in some cases the "arrangement" may not be to some people's taste, but there's no way to stop peole from doing that anyway. At least the present scheme provides no weighting in favour of, for example, an electronica/hip hop version of one of Walter's songs; exactly the same arrangement royalty is due even if the so-called arrangement consists of singing the song unadorned and unaccompanied.

My conclusion is that I'm not in favour of allocating writer credits to a hypothetical "Mr Trad". Apart from the endless bickering over who would get the money, it would actually discourage any performer who is a PRS member from singing traditional material.

And if nobody sings the songs, they lie hidden in books gathering dust which does no good at all and makes the whole business of collecting and preserving them rather pointless.

Anahata