Should auld acquaintance be forgot?

Robert Burns wrote Auld Lang Syne, right? Think again. The Scottish bard copied it down from an old bloke he met on his travels.

At least the Ploughman Poet gave credit where credit was due. Unlike the forgetting of inconvenient truths when record labels came to release cover versions of songs like Blue Suede Shoes, I Shot the Sheriff and Tutti Frutti.

The flowing of royalties eventually helped to quench residual, often racial, anger.