It's true that a song only has life when it's sung. The chap down the folk club who had a fair stab at Paul Brady's version of Arthur McBride (a real instance) could be seen as emulating his hero admiringly and we all knew what he was about (not making money, that's for sure). I'm certain that Paul would have smiled indulgently (it wasn't that good...) Ron Kavana came to our folk club and our MC asked if it was OK for him to sing Ron's song Reconciliation. Not only did he enthusiastically agree, he actually duetted the song with the MC (that was in 1993 and I still have a treasurable cassette of that evening...er...)

That is not the same thing as copying an arrangement for your own commercial CD, as Dylan did, stepping way over the plagiarism line. I don't care if someone comes down the club and does a fair copy of someone else's song for his floor spot. The added dimension, though, Joe, is the commercial one. I do sort of believe in the concept of intellectual property...