It should be noted - just as fact and in defense of nobody - that much of Kennedy's collecting, like that of even more famous collectors like Sharp and the Lomaxes, took place at a time when the ethics of collecting had not been much debated. Frank Proffitt apparently never got a dime from the Kingston Trio's zillion-dollar version of "Tom Dooley" in the 1950s, and few professional folklorists were terribly bothered. I believe that that case was something of a catalyst in galvanizing a higher level of professionalism among folklorists. In countless other cases, collectors made money (usually rather little) and source singers got nothing except thanks and a beer.

A bare handful of people may have done it, but the idea that collecting folk music was a good way to get rich is fantasy.

The legalistic sense of the era was that the songs, when found, were in the public domain, the informants didn't own them, and the collector's efforts in finding, researching, editing, and publishing was entirely value added, with nothing legally or ethically due the original singer.