In 2002 we released a CD that featured our great friend Randy Howard on multiple instruments. Randy, who passed away at 39, was Grammy nominated, won the US fiddle championship 12 times and played on many Nashville "stars'" recording projects. After his death we put together the CD that consisted of songs the three of us had recorded over the years. And we stated from the get go that all proceeds would go to cancer research in honor of Randy.

Because of his stature we got good reviews and sold quite a few CDs...mostly through CD Baby and later iTunes. We bought mechanical licenses for all of the cover tunes of course (a couple of artists gave us the rights gratis - one from a big publishing company). BUT within two years ALL of the songs had been ripped off and were available in many places for free download. Janice and I didn't have the resources to fight it.

All meaning I've been meticulous about not posting "cover" songs anywhere unless we owned ALL the rights...and, yes, you can own all the rights if the song is in the public domain. And for the PD songs we posted here we've thoroughly researched them because US law differs from the laws in many other countries. Because so many people ignored the notion of "intellectual property" we were no longer able to make contributions in Randy's name from the CD. To this day this has shaped the way I feel about these things. So, if somebody can legally post a cover song on Youtube...that is fine. But I don't think the poster should earn from it, i.e., proceeds should go to the writers and publishers. The poster can revel in the glory of hopefully a lot of listens that may grow them an audience and ultimately earn them some money.

Pardon the rant from the ole curmudgeon. FWIW, etc.

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