I agree, Lighter. The thrust of my comment though (perhaps buried in my rambling/ranting) is not disappointment with the "pyrate" interpretation in itself (which, as you say, is par for the course) but rather more disappointment that they were exposed to these other ideas—and (seemingly) chose to ignore them.

The hypothetical "general public" may have this vision of the genre, but they, practically speaking, have "no choice"; there is an abundance of media and representations that form their vision and they have no occasion to get that vision challenged. So be it. We geeks, needs, revivalists, scholars, etc. have our various views and they don't affect much. So be it.

On the other hand, it is said - by the creators and by fans - that the Assassin's Creed series' creators are known for their "meticulous" research on the eras/setting portrayed in their games. In promotional literature and such they pride themselves on this aspect that distinguishes their productions.

And so they *did*, unlike Joe General Public, embark on some research to do this. So in the process of looking for circa 50+ chanties that they would select to include in the game, they went through much material. My videos for sure. Other video renditions like Barry Finn's. Hugill's book, I think. Probably even Mudcat, but that's just a guess. So it seems they were not innocently uniformed, rather they ignored stuff.

It's just a huge missed opportunity. That is, this game (which came out last November IIRC) is (or will be, I believe, in hindsight viewed as) a milestone in the development of the public's knowledge about the chanty genre. It create a significant spike in interest among the current generation of young people. And it's a generation that's receptive to alternate visions of the genre - who in fact (in my experience) are not firmly entrenched in prior generation's notions. This is a generation that doesn't even know "Blow the Man Down." They are quite open.

They are also a generation that, like it or not, Joe, is getting their info on this genre from a few main sources, which in most cases do not include folkies or the canonical book collections. Those sources are this game, followed by looking up the songs on YouTube, followed by Wikipedia. The game creators dropped the ball…

Incidentally, I wouldn't want any royalties for any of my deliberately-sketchy YouTube activities. However, I do know that the head game creator used my videos (and others) as a resource. Rather than royalties, I'd rather he'd mailed me and told me directly (instead of my discovering it, after sleuthing it out, in an on-line conversation between 3rd parties) that he did. In which case, he might have even asked me (and others) for advice on the thing.