Jim, you appear to be overlooking the fact that the 1954 definition was for the purpose of academic study. It is commonplace in all activities for practitioners to use words in a more precise way than in general usage. It is therefore possible for "folk song" to have two meanings, the wider one in general use and the narrow, more precise one for specialists. Confusion arises on a forum like this which is composed of enthusiasts but not necessarily academics, who may use both senses without being clear which one they mean.

I suspect that in 1954 "folk song" even in general use still meant pretty much what Jim would like it to mean ie traditional song. However by the mid-60's it had broadened to include acoustic popular music. Now "folk" can mean almost anything - I have been listening to the BBC 2008 Folk Awards CDs and there's stuff on there that I can't see as being "folk" under any criteria (but perhaps that's just me turning into a Grumpy Old Man).

The fact is that the term "folk" slipped away from the 1954 definition long ago. We can't really complain, since the folk revival was happy to go along with this at the time. By the time I started to go to folk clubs in the early 1970s you could expect to hear all sorts of music there, including blues and "contemporary folk", probably a wider range than you would now. The accusation of "Judas" levelled at Dylan was because of his use of electric instruments, not because he was outside the 1954 definition of folk.

If the 1954 definition was being formulated now, it would probably have to use the term "traditional song" rather than "folk song".