we're going round in circles because you are not listening Jim.

all the songs you like were written by someone. they became folk when a community took the song - took possession of it by performing it, amending it, using it.
who wrote it and who owns it and who gets the prs money is an irrelevance.
we are folksingers, not accountants. we don't care who gets the money - it doesn't matter. they can stop us making a huge commercial recording of it -like Oasis did with The Smurfs - they did an injunction and stopped the release.

but they can't stop what we do with the music in pubs, folk clubs,in the privacy of own homes, on the football terraces....
these are places where folksong is created, where it has always been created.
folksong isn't just the province of a few isolated communities, or dusty stuff on the shelves of some folk library.
it is there in lifeblood of all people everywhere possibly of every class - fascists sang folksongs! communists! for all I know even tories.....