Great information, Jim. The re-arrangement of public-domain material for copyright purposes can be seen as more than a money-grab. If the artist credited the song to the public domain, then the money that would have gone to the composer/copyright holder would go to the record company. One can certainly argue that the artist who polished up the old public-domain song is more entitled to that money than the record company. With folk material, the issues gets a little more complicated because the issue was often whether the person who collected or discovered the song (e.g., Alan or John Lomax) was more entitled to the money than the artist who polished and recorded the song. By the way, the Weavers used Paul Campbell as the group pseudonym for public domain material that they claimed the copyright on. I wonder if Paul Campbell has any symbolic significance or whether it was just a name they pulled out of the air.
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