Folksong meaning

In legal practice, a folksong describes a traditional song—its melody (musical work) and often its words (literary work)—passed down orally, typically of unknown authorship and often originally unpublished. The term is descriptive rather than statutory: it is not defined in the UK Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 (CDPA) or Ireland’s Copyright and Related Rights Act 2000 (CRRA), but issues arise under the rules for anonymous works, public domain material and derivative works. Where authorship is unknown, copyright duration is assessed under the anonymous-works provisions: broadly, protection lasts for 70 years from creation unless the work is made available to the public within that period, in which case the term runs for 70 years from first publication or communication to the public (the approach is broadly consistent across England and Wales, Scotland, Northern Ireland and Ireland). Many folksongs are therefore out of copyright. However, copyright may subsist in later elements: arrangements, harmonisations and editions (and the typographical arrangement of published editions), as well as sound recordings and performers’ rights in performances. Practical clearance commonly requires confirming public-domain status of the underlying tune and lyrics, and separately clearing rights with music publishers, collecting societies (for example PRS/MCPS and PPL), or rights holders in...