As long as people think the folk process and the 1954 Definition is something that makes Folk somehow different from other musics then this thread will have a point.

Oh Lord. I think Howard nailed this one a few days ago (18/9/09, 6:46):

No one is saying that folk song is any less (or any more) creative or dynamic than jazz or any other music, or that musical ideas are not passed around between musicians in other genres. However the "folk process" is most pronounced in folk music, and moreover is the defining element of folk, by which I mean traditional, music.

Someone reinterpreting a piece of classical music will go back to the score. ... The same applies to much popular music - someone wanting to make their own version will usually go back to the original rather than taking someone else's version as a starting point
...
The difference with folk music is that in many cases the singers did not have access to the original version, and perhaps didn't have the concept of a "correct" version. They took the version they heard, with the changes and improvements made by previous singers, added their own, and passed it on to other singers, who in turn added their own variations, until we ended up with several widely differing versions of the same song.

In other words, it's a question of degree. As soon as people make music there's creativity in performance, and variations arising in the moment - you can't step into the same river twice. As soon as people make music for fun there are small-f small-p folk processes going on. But "the 'folk process' is most pronounced in folk music, and moreover is the defining element of folk, by which I mean traditional, music."

So Jim Carroll gets away with it whilst Glueman must be censored?

Suggest you compare Jim Carroll's snark-to-content ratio with glueman's.