Neal,

Sorry to hear of the situation. I enjoy being able to access many of these things which are not readily available commercially.

But...

RE public domain...yes, those old "traditional" songs are public domain, but the sound recording by Nathan Abshire, or the Touchets is not. There are two copyrights on the music. One is on the song (tune and lyrics) itself. The second copyright is on the sound recording itself. It is the second copyright (sound recording) that you would be in violation of in regard to old traditional tunes like Fee Fee, Rabbit stole the Pumpkin, etc. Whatever record company made those recordings---they hold copyright on the recording itself, for example Nathan Abshire playing Fee Fee Poncho in 1960 whatever.

In regard to someone else's question regarding buying a CD and burning a copy for a friend--that is a definite violation of copyright, don't do it. For those of us that finance our own projects, it really hurts our ability to do more projects in the future. Most Cajun recordings are lucky to "break even" with recording expenses, replication and duplication expenses, etc. Please don't jeopardize future Cajun recording projects by buying CDs you like and then burning copies for friends. The artists and the culture suffer because of this practice. Most Cajun artists are not in the record business to make money anyway. The music is not highly profitable to begin with. Cajun musicians record primarily to support their culture, to have a recording of their music for their relatively small circle of fans, and to get their music played on the radio. Please support the culture, music, and artists by paying for the recordings.

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