Similarly, there would be nothing to stop each of the collectors from producing his, or her, own 'arrangement' of the song that they had collected - although I would suggest that an accurate transcript of a traditional singer's version of a song does not constitute an 'arrangement'. Clearly there is something of a nonsense in this idea. Singers and Collectors Song ownership has never really been a problem for singers. When a singer is part of a singing community, 'ownership' of a song will almost always be known to the community as a whole, and there will be social pressure brought to bear on any singer who steps out of line. For a singer living in isolation from other singers there is no problem at all.
Collectors are, of course, a different kettle of fish.
Some, such as Vaughan Williams and Bartok, were inspired by their work as collectors and incorporated much of their collected work into their own compositions. Cecil Sharp, on the other hand, was largely motivated by a genuine desire to 'give folksongs back to the people', and this he did by arranging the songs that he collected for vocal performance with piano accompaniment. I doubt if any of these early collectors bothered to consider whether or not anybody actually 'owned' the songs and melodies that they were collecting and exploiting. Folksongs were like 'Primitive Art' - a debased term redolent of cultural superiority which early art historians perceived to be the work of autochthrones . To the early collectors they represented a tradition that was on the point of extinction and one that was increasingly difficult to obtain.