I am not comfortable letting commercial (i.e. copyright) considerations drive a definition of what is traditional and what is not. It seems cockeyed, it describes the thing through its outcome, not through its essence. A bit like saying "this animal is big, so it must be an elephant".

Twenty years ago, when the birthday song was still in copyright, I'd have no problem saying that it was a traditional song, but attributable and still in copyright.

Neither do I feel beholden to a 1953 or 1954 definition for any genre of music, especially one that has been around for centuries. It feels arrogant, as if those that preceded us were too weak-minded to define what they were doing, and we came to put them right.

And though I understand and partially sympathise with those that would define the tradition as a "closed body of work to which one can no longer add", once more I feel that such a definition is driven out of changing technology considerations, and not addressing the inherent makeup of the thing described; therefore, also false, especially when so many agree that the folk process continues still today (see related thread of a month or so ago).

As people have already said, the whole need for putting labels to music is a latter-day phaenomenon anyway, driven out of a commercial wish to have identifiable sections in stores.

In the end there are clearly several views of what is traditional and what is not, and I can live with that. I don't feel the need to change the label "folk", and I am happy to let the meaning be adapted and expanded with time. And if the label scares people away, as Richard (rightly) says, well sod it, if people will judge by labels, so be it - the ones that have brains will still listen before making up their minds.