Unfortunately I have only recently discovered this thread, but sadly have to concur with much of what has been said about Peter Kennedy's attitude to material he collected or recorded. In my capacity as Leader of the Sidmouth Traditional Mummers, I have spoken to members of the family of Arthour Baker, from whom the Sidmouth play was collected in 1957,as well as others involved at the time.
The play was collected from Arthour in 1957, and published by the Dartington institute shortly thereafter, copies of the script were freely sold both by Dartington, and Kennedy himself, for many years with, no financial recompense to Arthour or any of his companions, who also travelled at their own expense up to London to record an impromptu read through of the play for Kennedy and a group of his folklore enthusiast friends, this recording was also made available for sale on C.D via kennedy under the folktrax banner, towards the end of his life, I had several conversations with kennedy,both over the 'phone and via email, and he sent me a C.D of this recording, at no charge, but it came with dire warnings hand written on the sleeve that I must not use it for public performance or similar without his express permission, or else I would be liable to pay royalty to Kennedy as the copyright holder.
it is also regrettable that over the years the part played by local schoolteacher Win Humphries who was largely responsible for bringing the play to Kennedy's attention was systematically reduced, with collecting credits latterly given solely to Kennedy.
It is unlikely that Kennedy made a fortune from his exploitation of the Sidmouth Play, but it seems sad to us current generation of Sidmouth Mummers that those who actually created and performed the play got nothing, whilst others did receive an (albeit small) financial reward.
It is to be hoped that todays generation of collectors have a more altruistic and fair minded attitude to their sources than those of kennedys time.