Early music is among the purest and most expressive of musical forms, and perhaps more to the point, it predates our current copyright laws by hundreds of years. Not only are all the composers in question long since dead so too are their lawyers and any troublesome descendents thereof.*
In addition to this happy situation, rare indeed are critics willing to comment upon performances of historical tunes. Most of them wouldn't know a viola de gamba from a table leg, and they're certainly not about to make their lack of erudition publicly apparent. Those few who are qualified to address the issue are stuffy, wheezing pedants who typically speak in voices so highly-pitched as to be intelligible only to certain breeds of dogs.
Thus it was that the players of ancientmusick.com set about recording some of their favorite works, whilst thumbing their noses at any number of dead composers, deader lawyers and soon to be dead critics. Unlike ostensibly serious early music ensembles, however, ancientmusick.com was ill-disposed to spend an inordinate amount of their own money on period instruments or leather pantaloons. A guitar, while it may be inauthentic and un-period, is a lot easier to play than a lute.
The inspiration and performances of ancientmusick.com have been drawn from historical sources, but ages past never sounded like this.