Returning to Sharp, printed sources, and the treatment of the topic in ‘Fakesong’, here's what Sharp wrote:

“The ballad broadside, which sprang into life very soon after the invention of printing, consisted of a single sheet of paper, upon one side of which were printed the words only of the ballad, or song. These broadsheets were hawked about the country by packmen, who frequented fairs, village festivals, and public gatherings of all sorts, and who advertised their wares by singing them in market-places, on village greens, in the streets of the towns, and wherever they could attract an audience. In this way ballads and songs were disseminated all over the land. In later days the broadside would have two or more ballads printed upon it, and sometimes several ballads were bound together and distributed in small books of three or four pages, called ‘garlands’...”

On p 193 of ‘Fakesong’, however, we find:
“Kidson's reasonable advice, that a collector must know printed songs before he can pronounce on songs which appear to be 'folksongs', and his Journal article of 1905, were ignored by Sharp.”

But Sharp obviously did “know printed songs”, as evidenced not only by the quote above, but by the numerous references to specific print examples in his song annotations. To claim that Sharp gave “no consideration” to the idea of broadside dissemination, and “discounted” commercial song-culture, is a clear misrepresentation of what Sharp wrote and, since ‘Fakesong’ devotes several pages to ‘Some Conclusions’ and quotes copiously from it, it’s hard to see how this could have been simple oversight.

This issue is important because, as Steve Roud has said, ‘Fakesong’ became the basis for a new consensus.   It’s become received wisdom that, for instance, Sharp knew and said nothing about the broadside trade - just as all kinds of other erroneous assumptions are entertained because ‘Fakesong’ is taken as the last word on the subject while primary sources are overlooked. This has led us to a situation where people who ought to know better have felt at liberty to say pretty much what they like about Sharp, without doing basic checking. One US academic wrote recently in relation to Sharp’s Appalachian collection that “he was interested only in English music and dances” and “ignored the rest” (i.e. American-made songs), a claim that can be refuted simply by reading through he contents of ‘English Folk Songs from the Southern Appalachians’ and observing titles like ‘Old Joe Clark’, ‘John Hardy’, Omie Wise’ and ‘Swanannoa Town’. The authors of a mainstream reference work on popular music, titled (probably not coincidentally) ‘Faking It’, felt able to assert that Sharp was advancing “proto-fascist theories of a pan-European Aryan race”.

As Roud commented in‘The New Penguin Book of English Folk Songs’ (he didn’t name ‘Fakesong’, but it’s quite clear what he’s talking about), “the polemic that was produced [...] with a strong political agenda” has “warped the debate ever since”. If I may borrow one of Dave Harker’s many colourful phrases, perhaps it’s time to recognize ‘Fakesong’ as “intellectual rubble which needs to be shifted so that building can begin again.”