TECHNICALLY, folk music refers to music of which the composer is unknown. Anything that shows up as authored by "Traditional" was written by some dude sitting around a fireplace, and maybe his kids kept singing it, adding verses and such, and now we call him Traditional even though it's not his name. Call anything else folk music, and you'll piss off the nearest music teacher, guaranteed!

The same process applies to music, literature, and history alike; anything passed down from one person to another without making a perfect copy is subject to alteration and/or degradation. During this process, origins and authorship become unclear. The same happens with urban legends and e-mail forwards, which become a part of the Internet's folk history.

It seems that hip-hop and techno melanges -- obscure samples and all -- may in fact be closer to folk music than the material actually termed folk music by record companies and music fans.