In simple language, Richard:

All music is human and therefore folk by default. The 1954 definition is a manifestation of the same voyeuristic patronisation which is the wellspring of all perceived folklore, which only becomes such when actually defined, otherwise it gets along just fine without it. Rather like language with linguistics, the latter existing only by virtue of the former, but nevertheless giving rise all manner of pedantry, which I fear is the case here. Taxonomy creates systems by virtue of its own method - these systems are figments of the taxonomical process. Folk music is one such figment; it is a theoretical construct, and has no actual meaning beyond what is in terms of actually experiencing the bloody thing. Some people use stamps to stick on envelopes, others collect them & catalogue them; some people use trains for getting from A to B - others spot them. Some people sing traditional songs as part of a celebratory collective catharsis - others... well, I'm sure you know what I'm saying.

Sherlock Holmes warned against making the facts fit the theory; with the 1954 definition, I fear that's exactly what has happened. All real music is subject to the same folk process - be it pop, rock, jazz, hip-hop, gamelan, drum & bass, country, classical, whatever. The imaginary music you call Folk is rather like a model railway, which is in every way authentic, exact in every detail, but in no way is it real. As I have said before, the difference between your average Model Railway Enthusiast and your average Folk Music Enthusiast (myself included) is that the former would at least recognise a real train should they see one.

I love Traditional English Folk Song (English as in language rather than nation); it's what I do, and how I spent most of my social life - interfacing with others in folk clubs, festivals & singarounds in a collective experience which is, after all, strictly empirical. I know this works for me; I trust in it implicitly and I dearly love all the singers & enthusiasts & musicians & dancers & organisers who make this thing the living breathing wonderful thing that it is. I am, however, under no illusions as to what it is, or else its relationship to the rest of world music, which is part and parcel of the appeal I reckon; we quirky eccentric individualists who immerse our evident idiosyncrasies into the collective experience of a Bloody Good Sing.

But out there in the real world...

No matter; folk isn't about the real world. If it was, chances are, I wouldn't be interested. The Folk World exists in oblique parallax to the real world, but shares a similar necessity; in short, it sings about how good the old one was.