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The Hope Archive

Fintan Vallely ©1996

(A shorter, edited version of this article was printed in The Irish Times on February 4th, 1997, under the title "Save the Session". The full version is posted here with permission of the author.)

Introduction

By December 1996 eight hundred publicans were before the Dublin District Court because of failure to pay royalty charges levied by IMRO, the Irish Music Rights Organisation. Most of these cases involve 'in copyright' modern music and background sound, but some of them are about Traditional music 'sessions'. Musicians and publicans are tight-lipped verging on paranoid, many players are outraged, believing this music to be public property, passed on in trust, and the work of many hands, original composer long forgotten. They also wonder where the buck will stop – will such 'licencing' be extended to 'dry' music venues and festivals?

Is there a case to be made for the exemption of Traditional music session playing from normal royalty payments? This article will examine Irish copyright law as it applies to Traditional and Folk musics in the context of the Vintners' Federation of Ireland dispute with IMRO.

The Session, Democracy, and Tradition

Since the nineteen sixties re-vitalisation of Irish Traditional music there have been several kinds of playing venue – the big concert, the Folk Club, the pub gig and 'the session'. But it is 'the session' that has been the most popular place both to practice and listen, varying from tea-and-sandwich austerity to rip-roaring, divilmacare abandon. 'The session' is democratic, it encourages beginners and younger people to quietly muddle their way through learning, allows the more talented and wiser to take their leads and get some spotlight. Education, expertise and ego are all satisfied inside a framework of peers, friends, or neighbours, who come together casually if not by chance. Close as it is to the notion of 'the fireside', it is no wonder that for a lot of people this playing format has become an absolute, an institution, almost a right.

Ireland has scores of sessions every night, hundreds at the weekend and daily during the summer months. Licenced premises are the usual venues and to guarantee a show for the punter who may find this type of aural wallpaper attractive, some pubs will pay a small sum as retainer to one or two musicians. This is also often done as a support deal with a local Comhaltas Ceoltóirí Éireann branch, or a group of friends who happen to want a place to play. Such anchor players could be as well-known as, say, accordionist Jackie Daly or fiddler Frankie Gavin, and the rich and famous may well drop in to join. The music they play will most often be the older, out-of-copyright tunes, but is likely to include a greater or lesser number of pieces composed within the last fifty years – Paddy Fahy's, Finbar Dwyer's, and the late Ed Reevy's work are very popular.

Such new tunes are like any other music, they are 'in copyright', playing them in advertised, commercial, public space obliges the owner of a premises to pay a royalty to their composer as in all other musics. Practically, this is done in gig and concert venues by payment of an annual copyright 'licence'. This fee is levied by an organisation known as the Irish Music Rights Organisation (IMRO), of which some, but by no means all, Traditional music composers are members.

Until a couple of years ago the British-based Performing Right Society (PRS) collected these royalties. For Irish composers and songwriters, however, it had an inequitable distribution system, and so IMRO, controlled by them, now does the job. Being local, IMRO can exercise greater muscle, and in coming down on a substantial number of previously-non-paying establishments they have got many publicans' ganders up and also, inadvertently or otherwise, have begun to impose a licence on some 'session' venues. These it has seen as commercial music, IMRO members' music. It is collecting in the interests of those members. Some of the musicians who play in these venues are unconcerned, they say "well, why shouldn't publicans contribute to the music? Don't they only pay a token sum to hired players anyway?" Musicians do not see the session as a concert performance, not even when they are paid a retainer. The session has a large measure of spontaneity, it doesn't involve obligation, it is free of performer tension and, almost like background music, most people are not listening as such. Especially in the smaller session venues, players are alarmed by the notion of IMRO licence, experiencing it as regulation and control. In particular they are outraged at the implication: the imposition of a tax on tunes, most of which were hereditary property, the work of many generations' hands, intellectual property held in common trust to be interpreted and passed on – belonging to the nation.

Establishing copyright – ownership of every song sung and tune played – is a fairly simple process in all contemporary musics, but becomes disputable in Traditional musics which have been around in their present 'shape' for anything up to three hundred years. As Ireland moves under more control from Europe, lots of aspects of culture that we take for granted as natural, as part of our distinctive quality of life, are being accorded economic value or brought to heel by meticulous application of legislation. Traditional music is no exception. The extension of licencing/taxation of session music may be an over-zealous mistake, or it may be only intended for the ambiguous venues, but presently it is causing confusion and ideological panic among the biggest portion of the country's musicians – the non-professional players who depend on uncomplicated, casual, public space. Now the matter has become a plank in the ongoing Vintners' Federation of Ireland (VFI) wrangle with IMRO over disputed royalty dues for entertainments and radio/TV/hi-fi background music. It has become part of the challenge to what is perceived as IMRO's 'monopoly' of royalty collection and reckless imposition of tariffs. But the existence of the dispute at all points to serious inadequacies within, and/or lack of information about, the copyright-royalty setting and collection system that we presently have.

Copyright, Royalties, and Collection

In a small world a composer/performer would have a repertoire of original work, a concert is announced, an audience purchases tickets and assembles. The performer plays, the audience listens, and then goes away happy with its exchange of money for music. If another player performs this piece, however, a wider audience has the opportunity to hear it, and if it is printed out, or recorded, the world is expanded yet more. The musician can be heard in many different places, the performance is transformed into a product, infinitely re-playable. If the recording is broadcast on radio, played in a pub or shopping centre, the number of simultaneous listeners is multiplied. All of these situations add on value to both the actual performance and the composition, that value is regarded as intellectual property, currently worth 36% of the EC's gross domestic product. Monies for it are paid to the composers and performers as 'royalties', legislated for in the 1963 Copyright Act. In Ireland there are three different royalties involved, administered by three different bodies – the Mechnical Copyright Protection Society (MCPS), Phonographic Protection Ireland (PPI), and the Irish Music Rights Organisation (IMRO). Nominally, all of them are run on a non-profit basis, but IMRO is the only one run by and on behalf of actual Irish composers and music publishers. By reciprocal agreements with similar bodies abroad these organisations are also collecting on behalf of the stars of the international music world.

Performers of music get a royalty when they are recorded for albums, radio, or TV. This is administered by MCPS, which collected about £3.5 million last year. Record companies get a producer's royalty whenever those albums are played publicly or broadcast. This is the business of the PPI, turnover £3 million last year. In their turn the composers get a royalty too from MCPS for their material put on record, but they are also due an additional royalty from IMRO for each of their recorded items that are played in public, and for live stage and gig performance of their music. IMRO is the biggest asset to composers, collecting £8.27 million last year. MCPS, PPI, and IMRO are all self-appointed businesses, collection agencies set up – effectively – by composers, performers, music publishers and record companies to make life easier for themselves. Without them it would be impossible for an individual to keep track of, let alone get, any royalties. Put simply, the three agencies both represent and are the production end of the music industry.

IMRO is the body that concerns non-commercial Traditional music and 'the session'. An Irish-owned and managed company, it is set up on the democratic European model of an 'authors' society'. Its composer-members (among whom are most of our better-known Traditional musicians) are the company. Its management board has seven writers and five publishers. Collectively, they are either composers in their own right or promoters and marketers of the creative work of composers and songwriters. IMRO invites composers to authorise it to collect legally-due royalties on their behalf, the composers sign over these collection rights, IMRO collects by imposing a fee or 'licence' on music users – gig venues, shops, and pubs that use radio, TV, and background music. Administration charges are deducted and IMRO divides the surplus among its members. It has the power to collect royalties in the same way that a rent-collector is given authority by a landlord. However, central to all of this process is the legitimacy or otherwise of IMRO's claim or right to represent the ownership of a particular piece of music. So just how can copyright be assessed for Traditional music?

Copyright, Composers, and Traditional 'Arrangement'

Copyright applies to any piece of music – Traditional or otherwise. A songwriter or music composer owns copyright to their work in their lifetime, and it is the property of their heirs for seventy years after their death. If rock, pop, classical or jazz musicians play or record a number, its writer will most likely be known, or if not still alive will be credited with authorship, and the appropriate person will be paid the due royalty. If the piece of music is out of copyright, however, it is considered public domain, and no royalties are due. Traditional music, being 'traditional', falls into this category. The nearest thing to this is Classical or Baroque music where the composer may be dead for a couple of hundred years, and the pieces due no royalty. But if such a work is re-arranged, re-interpreted, then the arrangers have automatically established a new copyright on the new version, and for its recording or public performance royalties are due.

In Traditional music there may be six thousand old, individual jigs, reels, airs and such in circulation, all long out of copyright, composers unknown or long dead, all public domain. Individual musicians play different versions of these tunes which may either be their own, or may be local variants from a still-living player. But still, each tune is known by the common tune name, or its local version, and very often it might have no locally-known name at all. Few Traditional players commit their variations to staff notation or claim copyright. But those who record albums will usually claim "Trad., arr." – traditional tune, arranged by the player, who in these cases is assumed to be part composer. If the player doesn't do this then, effectively, no royalty would be paid to anyone, so it is accepted by all musicians that the individual talent of the player may as well be credited by the (usually small) reward it gets in this way. There are also possibly a thousand 'new' tunes in the music – most of their authors known, but a lot of them not registered as copyright owners. Those not registered are treated as 'Traditional'.

Things like this can be easily policed by IMRO – a graded licence fee, depending on performance area and frequency of events, etc., is levied on public space users of live and background music, radio, and TV music, the latter generating the most controversy. Radio and TV stations also play IMRO a blanket licence fee, presenters log the tracks that they play, and IMRO divides the money up among its members on a sample basis of their airplay time. Non-IMRO members get nothing out of any of this, no matter how often they might be played on air, but the process is still accepted as fairly all right for recorded traditional music. And even when we consider a live, concert-style, properly-paid gig, things are still OK – professional and semi-professional musicians who belong to IMRO fill out a log sheet of the tunes played, submit it to IMRO who then pay their composer-members on the basis of numbers of times their arranged pieces have been performed. This is an incentive to players to join the organisation.

It works fine for commercially-based music performance, but there is a problem with Traditional music in the public, non-professional 'session', even where there are poorly-paid anchor musicians present. Because the notion of 'tradition' involves the idea that things are changed constantly, ever so slightly, then all old tunes being played are so altered 'in the hands of each player'. Theoretically, everyone in the session plays their own version, their own arrangement. So, to accommodate this notion, IMRO now encourages all musicians to register each tune of their entire individual repertoires as each musician's own personal arrangement. The 'session' players then are encouraged to send in a list of their gigs for the year, the tune-list for each gig, and they should get paid royalties at the year's end. Since the panel of musicians we have at any moment in time are, effectively, the 'tradition carriers', the process is vaguely democratic, even if crudely so. However, to consider it as anything other than a pragmatic solution to IMRO's administrative problems is self-delusory: if there are a hundred sessions per night in Ireland, with an average of ten people playing in each, and - on a good night – they get through three hundred tunes, that's a grand total of 300,000 tune variations. Or if all of the 6,000 tunes in the national stock are, on average, played a hundred times per annum, six million variations have been created. Frankly, the notion is ridiculous. In fact, while there may be many people who work out variations, most are playing the basic tune as best they can, but sometimes they make mistakes. Still, this is probably the only attitude that can be taken in the case of commercial gigs and recorded music, but it does not work with the session, and its application to the session can only be seen as a means to an end for IMRO to cope with something which they do not understand. How could they comprehend when it even defies most musicians' attempts at explanation? In fact, the session is something unique to Ireland and demands special consideration.

But why indeed bother with all this paperwork and registration, laced as it is with the illegality of assuming and, upon that basis, charging for, the presence of in-copyright tunes being played? The session is not about production and consumption of music in the normal sense – it is created predominantly for the musicians themselves, even in the case of the anchor players. People are playing (unavoidably) their own versions (arrangements) of older tunes, and possibly a small number of the newer 'copyright' repertoire – maybe 3% of a night's tunes would be such. If they are not members of IMRO (most are not), and if they haven't their own arrangements registered, IMRO are losing nothing. If an IMRO licence is to be charged to the premises' owner – however small – financially it would be on behalf of people not present. In the session format – as in the notion of 'tradition' itself – people share their intellectual property, and everybody gains something else. Traditional music is only at the cultural and commercial pitch it presently enjoys precisely because of this ethos. Despite the playing on occasions of 'copyright' tunes, this environment cannot be equated with, say, a Rock and Roll night where the music as we know it began its life with a known composer, as a commodity in the commercial world.

Cases and Quarrels

Copyright legislation is the law. Owners of premises upon which 'copyright' music is played are obliged to enforce the law by declaring to the copyright owners' agency, in this country IMRO. Being an organisation of songwriters and composers, IMRO looks after the best interests of music creators, and its existence came about in the first place to make sure that they get their dues in situations where there is an exchange of performance for money. But the 'session' is not the same. Even taking the bigger session venues – say, An Spailpín Fánach in Cork – the anchor musicians play un-amplified in a corner and are joined by others. This is not a 'gig' in the normal sense of the word, despite the throng of drinkers, and in any case they may never play a 'copyright' tune in the whole night. Who is capable of assessing whether they do or not? If they were to consciously consider the matter, they could indeed restrict their playing to exclude such material, but the absurdity of that scenario for the musicians would be the equivalent of censoring pub conversation to exclude mention of ideas in contemporary Irish literature. It is doubtful whether many of IMRO's Traditional music members wish to have such rigidity applied on their behalf. Certainly, the bulk of those involved in the music, the non-professionals, will not tolerate it. IMRO employs a staff of thirty two, and in addition have twenty five inspectors/collectors who work on commission. Some of these are also music assessors who do not possess any particular knowledge of music other than an ability to know a gig when they see one. In expertise they are no different to the majority of publicans who don't know Riverdance from The Liffey Banks. In their assessment role they may tape gigs or monitor the frequency of music nights, they *assume* that all the music played is 'copyright'. Important decisions are made by them. If the publican disagrees, an appeal must be lodged with IMRO for reconsideration, and if that fails they will have to go further. The first option is the way forward out of any such impasse with IMRO is for the music user to appeal directly to Sean Fitzpatrick, Controller of Patents, Designs, and Trademarks at the Department of Enterprise and Employment. Cases have been dealt with by him in the past, but appeals are not really his territory, his resources are inadequate and any accepted cases can take years. So presently disputing music-users en masse are simply refusing to pay IMRO, then waiting until they are brought to court. Since IMRO's contracts are Dublin-based, this means that such cases are brought before the Dublin District Court.

Out of some six thousand publicans in Ireland, eight hundred are presently there, mostly, it would seem, for challenges to re-evaluations of their music use and venue areas. Co-ordinating legal and lobbying challenges to IMRO is a body called the Irish Music Users' Council (IMUC), operating from the Vintners' Federation of Ireland (VFI) offices and phone number in Dublin, but also involving RGDADA, the small shopkeepers' body. They challenge IMRO's control of music-copyright collection, claiming that this is undemocratic, that it can set whatever licence rate it chooses. The VFI's chairman Tadhg O'Sullivan adds to these demands their concern about IMRO assessment of the pub session as full-blooded 'public entertainment'.

But neither O'Sullivan nor IMRO's Hugh Duffy seem quite sure of what is known as 'the session', let alone 'Traditional' music. Duffy is adamant that people are playing copyright music in the session premises from which IMRO demand a licence fee. Yet they have reneged on some such decisions when challenged with music 'evidence'. They assessed The Gables bar in Cork as liable, even though it has strictly traditional music and singing sessions. Only after its persistent refusal to pay, backed by producing music evidence, was IMRO's evaluation withdrawn. Similarly, it assessed as liable the Spailpín Fánach bar in the same city, the fee was first paid, but is now being challenged. The Lobby Bar in Cork refused to pay a licence for sessions in its non-performance area. It was taken to court but IMRO settled. Duffy is not aware of the existence of the many sessions round the country where large groups of musicians play together, and holds that IMRO would not be interested in such scenarios anyway. The fact that many venues have never been approached for a session licence by IMRO indeed lends weight to this claim, even if his agents' pursuit of other cases throws doubt on it. O'Sullivan too is vague about 'Traditional music', roping in to his definition ballads and singalong. He has no available breakdown of the 800 challenges to IMRO which might indicate what kind of music or circumstances they involve. This lack of specificity lends weight to Duffy's claim that "the VFI are using the Traditional music issue to lobby support for their reluctance to pay any writers' royalties at all".

Games, Reports, and Inaction

The interests of Traditional musicians coincide with both IMRO and the Vintners' Federation, but neither body has the expertise to comment or legislate aesthetically on Traditional music, and this is what is require in the case of assessment of the copyright content of 'the session'. Indeed, IMRO is quite up-front and pragmatic about this. More immediate, though, are the court cases and the criticisms of IMRO's effective accountability to no-one, and its activity on the ground. Scare stories and rumour tend to be given more heed. For instance, Senator Brendan Howard, himself a publican in Ennis, criticises IMRO for collecting on a commission basis – rumoured to be 20% - a kind of work, he believes, that "attracts retired Gardaí and debt collectors, and people do not like that". But IMRO say that their bills are sent out by computer when they fall due, just like any other invoice, and, according to Duffy, 30% are paid straight off, 30% pay on reminder, and 40% go to collection or litigation.

In response to the publican's lobby, Seamus Brennan, Minister for Trade and Marketing in the last government, through his personal secretary Dick Doyle, in 1993 got the Consumer Protection Unit to do a report on the matter. This was commissioned of Cooney Carey Consultants, co-ordinated by Angela Butler there, but was then shelved. A substantial document which for its research into the music industry alone deserves to be published, sight of its contents is one of the music users' council's demands. The report is believed to have involved a comparison with European rates, recommended lowering of certain royalty licences, and proposed some form of more efficient dispute settlement. Padraig Hennessy of the Intellectual Property Unit of the Department of Employment and Enterprise believes, however, that it would be of no significance now anyway. Willie Fagan of Consumer Protection saw the report as an interim solution pending a proper copyright tribunal. He holds that the courts are not a suitable place for royalty regulation, and is sceptical about VFI allegations of IMRO 'monopoly'. Since the report's completion, Dick Doyle has jumped ship and now works for Brennan's and the VFI's opposition – as chief executive of the record industry's PPI. Currently, too, the 1963 Copyright Act is being reviewed. Submissions are being invited and heads of a new bill are due for publication next year.

Many of our best known professional musicians are utterly opposed to any tax on sessions. But others regard a tax on publicans as justified. They see publicans using Traditional music to encourage customers and increase their profits. While this may often undoubtedly be true, if one witnesses the temperance levels at some country sessions, the generosity of proprietors at others, such a blanket attitude can be unfair. It may even be smug, if not self-seeking, for it's IMRO members who will ultimately reap the dues which are levied on session venues whether the session musicians play IMRO members' tunes or not. Still, most musicians and composers, including Mícheál Ó Súilleabháin, who welcome their IMRO royalty cheques for their own work are adamant that the 'session' should not be taxed. If 'copyright' tunes are played there, few are concerned, or feel deprived. One feels chuffed at such validation by one's peers. They believe that the session – or its equivalent – has been the passing on mechanism in the survival and revival of the music. If that is snuffed out by 'regulation' then the music loses its spontaneity. We will have another 1935 Dance Halls Act which through prohibition shifted older practices from free, public space to commercial, licensed enclosures.

Silences and Solutions

IMRO are pragmatic. They have no choice but to regard ownership of music as black and white. Having 'tune inspectors' would be a minefield wide open to corruption, so too would be exemptions: "This is the law we're talking about" as Hugh Duffy says. So maybe it is there that the solution lies? IMRO is not obliged to have, has never had, and does not believe it should have, consultations on actual tune ownership with any of the bodies involved in Traditional music, least of all the Irish Traditional Music Archive at Merrion Square, Dublin, the only state-funded reference point in the music. Small wonder that Comhaltas Ceoltóirí Éireann, the biggest organisation in Traditional music, and , ostensibly, representing a large number of non-professional players, has had a motion passed at congress pledging non-involvement with IMRO under any conditions. Its director and only spokeperson, Labhrás Ó Murchú, will say absolutely nothing on the subject. Its subsidiary trade union, the Association of Irish Traditional Musicians, dismisses IMRO as an English import, holds that Traditional music belongs to the nation – but does at least acknowledge that copyright is an important issue, that composers deserve their dues. Individual artistes, recording company personnel – people in positions in the Traditional music industry – almost invariably qualify their comments so 'off the record' as to make their quotable opinions worthless. Senator Howard's Co. Clare vintner associates threatened a boycott of ITMEX, the Ennis-run, Irish Traditional Music Expo effort in October last, if IMRO took part. The organisers capitulated and withdrew their invitation, which was akin to having a board meeting without the treasurer. The Clare vintners' chairman Ciarán Browne still will not discuss IMRO at all.

Why the coyness, threats, and fear? Well, the total turnover for the four collection agencies was $14.77 million last year (a large amount of that, by reciprocal agreement, on behalf of foreign composers, of course). This is an industry – even if it also has a small but significant, native, cultural, and aesthetic dimension. IMRO is essential to many Traditional musicians' livelihoods. It has increased revenues due to them by 800% since it began taking over from its British-based predecessor, the PRS. Irish venue owners have had to pay those monies. The VFI resists the unaccustomed levies and is involved in obstinate challenge. And jobs for musicians are at stake too: pub gigs, selling records, collection of royalties for arranged tunes, getting recording deals, promotion in the media, tours abroad and work in IMRO-sponsored showcases – no-one wants to be the one to rock the boat. Clearly, decisions have got to be taken in other places.

IMRO is here to stay. It has been a positive development for Irish composers of all sorts, and regardless of criticisms is absolutely necessary. But by moving, without consultation, to tax 'the session' they have shown that outside supervision of their charges is necessary. This demands, first, an independent, overseeing and regulatory body which would define territory, set rates, hear appeals and so remove suspicion of IMRO from musicians and publicans. Second, there is a need for an established intellectual reference point or process in order to adjudicate disputes of ownership of copyright of Traditional tunes. Third, in accordance with most musicians' beliefs, 'Traditional arrangement' should only be applicable as ownership in the case of recorded music, its public airplay, and organised concert and gig performances. It should not be valid for sessions where everyone plays together, in such an amalgam that the music produced amounts to the same 'arrangement'. Vesting the title of old tunes in the State for sessions – as some have suggested –would be open to challenge, invite corruption, and be of no benefit to recording musicians. Anyway, it was tried and abandoned in Sweden where royalties from Traditional tunes used be invested in promotion and archiving.

Fourth is the major question – should 'the session' be licensed at all? To a collection agency this seems obligatory, for by law copyright holders are entitled to their royalties. In that case there are only two options that could fulfil the letter of that law. One would be to establish 'approved', hair-shirt sessions where nothing newer than 1926 vintage is played or sung. Crazy? Of course, though maybe redundant RUC personnel could be re-trained to police it. The other solution would be to independently estimate the percentage of in-copyright tunes likely to be played at sessions (this would not be difficult). The small session-rate so established could then be the norm for all informal, un-amplified, non-stage playing, regardless of size or location of premises. But just think of the scope for evasion.

Licensing of the session means logging of tune arrangements, creation of royaltied and non-royaltied castes of musicians. It puts publicans' and hall-owners in dread of their musicians 'declaring themselves' to IMRO and thereby bringing down taxation. More importantly, it creates the principle of a small number of individuals being paid for the fruits of the in-family retention, voluntary teaching, collection, and organisational work of many, many others over the years, a lot of whom are still alive and unrewarded financially. Particularly disturbing and undemocratic is that it also sanctions payment to some for the creative work of people long dead. Since session music involves no formality, stage or PA, is, like conversation, done primarily for the musicians' own private enjoyment, and is a well-established feature of pub life, there is a strong case to be made that 'the session' should be exempted altogether from copyright-royalty collection.

In all of this, IMRO should possibly be aware that most sessioning musicians have, with the odd exception, no particular love for publicans. The VFI are following a purely economic agenda in the present dispute, and little of it has to do with Traditional music, despite the fact that rumour of 'the session' issue is presently being exploited in the publicans' favour. Musicians' primary interest in in playing, not patronising. They are aware that their music is of benefit to the publican, but like the yarn tellers, darts, pool, cards, and domino gamesters, this is quid pro quo, each group takes what they need from the situation. Few musicians are in any publican's pocket. Publicans do not like, and are not obliged to like, musicians any more than they have to like anyone else they sell drink to. Perception of them making fortunes out of music are no more valid than saying that they make fortunes out of people enjoying themselves. That is what they are there for. It is hard, admittedly, for an economist to understand that, but this is precisely the problem with IMRO, the session, and the publican.

Musicians should be wary of succumbing to paranoia, for the session-tax issue is really none of the publicans' business anyway – it is of primary importance to the artistic integrity of playing musicians, not to those who rent the premises. To be specific, a precedent set in pubs can be applied then to all other venues. Musicians should be aware too that IMRO represents ALL of the big names, the household mentors, those who are looked up to, professional and semi-professional players in traditional music. It is a professional musicians' organisation and any composing musician who is not in it is foolish. Yet, still the biggest side of Traditional music is not the wealthy elite, and no professional players have the right to take from them what is not, and never was, theirs to take. Tragically, IMRO is viewed by the non-professional music world as the pickpocket on the session periphery, but by acting without consultation it is the architect of its own demonisation.

Yet, despite the official 'no-talks' line, some things have been moving behind the scenes. Two and a half years ago IMRO sponsored the appointment of a UCD Newman scholar to research the social and economic contribution of music in general to Irish society. This year, the appointee, Bernadette Quinn, not a musician herself, as part of an ongoing agreement was asked to present to IMRO a paper on copyright and Traditional music. And a week after IMRO's Hugh Duffy was interviewed for this article, he commissioned Toner Quinn, a musician, but young and with no particular experience of the national Traditional scene, to research the same issue for IMRO. Perhaps this represents progress, but why does IMRO persist in refusing to consult the well-established organisations who, between them, actually coherently represent the musicians, many of whom are IMRO members.

In the heat of this jungle of stubborn non-communication, one is led back to the late Breandán Breathnach's tale of an 1830s Kerry piper who shot, and later almost beat to death, someone who stole and played his tune.