Sorry to bleat on about the commercial influences on folk song but a large slice of those variations in text we so readily covet are directly down to professional ballad hacks who sometimes collected from oral tradition, sometimes wholesale rewrote ballads for their paymasters, the broadside printers, and sometimes simply pirated them from other printers. Sometimes the ballad sellers were at once collectors and disseminators. The Glasgow Poets Box c1850-1880 was typical. The 'Poet' actively advertised for new songs and old and people would take into his office the latest music hall songs, songs straight from oral tradition and songs printed by other printers, for a small remuneration.