Miserlou and copyright

[Fred Blumenthal <xd2fabl...>]

Someone needs to state the obvious with regard to Miserlou and copyright,
so I'll step forward.  Without getting into the musicology or
ethnomusicology of that specific song, what a specific person copyrighted
in a specific year could very well be a specific arrangement of the song.
This wouldn't necessarily cancel existing authorship or copyright.  From
the discussion thus far, and from the provided link, it sounds like this is
a folksong in the sense that it's been handed around and changed.  After
all, every song, whether "folk" or not, began with a specific person making
up a song.  So even songs designated as "folk" had now-forgotten composers
somewhere and at some time.

Fred Blumenthal
xd2fabl (at) us(dot)ibm(dot)com

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