Why on earth should the future of music be dependent on people trying to be original any more than the future of humanity is based on people trying to make sure their children are different from other children?

Children are always different - that's how the world works. Music is much the same. Give it its head and let it take you where it's going.

Whether a tune is a traditional tune or one which was made up by a named person recently or long ago might be of legal significance, but it doesn't really matter outside of that. As Jerry said, the good thing with folk music is that most of the time we get under the wire because we aren't a viable milk cow for the poeple who own the music machine.

Communicating in speech or singing orm music is about doing what is necessary, in order to get across as effectively as possible. Sometimes that means doing something different from what has been done before, sometimes it means reminding people of what has been done before - and sometimes that can be a way of making them aware of changes that have happened. Change for its own sake is just doodling.