Well, that yelling incident sounds very extreme.

Jerry, you wrote "We may be mixing apples and elephants here. I do think the whole concept of "owning" a song that is in the public domain is at a minimum self-contradictory." and later "We're talking two different things here, Jeri, and I think it's the word "own" that is the problem." Yeah - I didn't expect anyone would discuss this from the standpoint someone could, or thought they could own public domain songs. I thought the controversial word was used for lack of a better one and I'm pretty sure I understand what Sandy and Tom meant by.

In any case, the whole darned thing comes down to sensitivity, tact, and things there are no hard and fast rules to explain.