We’re clearly off on a tangent, but I disagree with your notion that doing the traditional arranged by is little different from claiming it as an original.
By noting it as traditional, you are saying I did not write this. It is old. So old we don’t know who wrote it.
An area of some interest for me as a musician playing some traditional, arranged by us, songs. Lily of the West, by way of example.
“I disagree with your notion that doing the traditional arranged by is little different from claiming it as an original.”
As far as royalties are concerned, I said. You don’t pay royalties to anyone else on an original composition you record, and you don’t pay royalties to anyone else on a traditional song you arranged. So there’s no difference in that respect.