Hi,

With the folk process where do you draw the line? In the US back in the 1920s Ralph Peer was making the equivalent of $250 million a year off the copyrights of folk songs that were subsequently recorded. Most songs that were preserved by The Carters and others they did not write and yet they received royalties because they copyrighted the songs.

These early country musicians claimed ownership of these songs as if they wrote them.

Learning and changing the songs today is essentially what the folk process has been through the years. The difference and it's an important one- is that the songs are not passed down orally. And- the versions that are being changed are copyrighted.

If ‎in 1967 John Anthony Scott decides to say Polly Wand was sung during the Revolutionary Period of 1775-1781, and offers made up evidence (printed by Coverly around 1800) and then changes the text of a traditional text and puts Polly Wand instead of Polly Van- it's his decision. The ballad through the Allen family could possibly have been sung then- but he can't mention that because he'd be using copyrighted material (by Linscott in 1939) without permission. Paul Clayton can't mention his source either.

So it's attributed to "oral tradition" and the actual version is never even mentioned.

Dodgy may be a better word :)

Richie