Your last point is well made mattkeen. Any form that uses a known name as the criterion of whether music is folk deserves to implode from nit-picking. A musician may have used a nickname or be known by something other than his given one which was common in rural communities. Does that validate his folk credentials by his identity being hidden? And can an author be included in what's loosely called the canon by virtue of insufficient research being performed into the song's authorship?

Then there's the issue of 'who are the folk?' Who indeed? A rag tag band of rural enthusiasts from the 1960s. Edwardian middle class music collectors with a temporal telescope? Some latter day self-appointed folk police? Victorian social hobbyists? Then there's the point about singer songwriters assuming the condition of traditional performer. Are they really trying to do that, to have their work changed by successive use? Are beleaguered record company execs trying to highjack folk, one of the most unpopular of popular forms and sneak it under the noses of folk's border control? I think we should be told!

Any folk festival that exclusively used 1954 definitions as a condition would be short of punters. Folk is a broad church as the Cambridge Folk Festival (a title that's yet to receive a legal challenge AFAIK) will attest.