If the folk process has effectively "ceased to operate" as you say, Mr Radish, (and please don't get silly about the name) yet it remains part of the 1954 definition, then how can any 'new' songs become folk songs under said definition?

I'll go and start a Snelgrove Club

Best of luck with that.

If it doesn't evolve, it's not a folk song. No more, no less. It's a description, not a value juegement.

Sounds like a law to me.

So, Howard, where do people get to sing these songs so that they may "evolve and change"?

Folk (or Snelgrove) Clubs? Ha! Read some of the posts about that subject.