Major US recording companies lost an antitrust case and were told to give millions of CD’s to libraries as part of the $143 million settlement. But it appears that the CD’s being offered are overstocked recordings the companies couldn’t sell anyway. “The impression one gets from the list is that the record companies are just unloading overstock. It appears many libraries will receive too many copies of some titles and others they don’t want at all.”
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Disease Afflicting Great Pipe Organs Of Europe
“A mysterious epidemic of organ “leprosy” is sweeping Europe, corroding pipes and threatening to silence some of the continent’s most renowned instruments. The European Union has mounted a major effort to save them, even though it is not yet known whether modern central heating, air pollution or something else is causing the problem. Organs were the personal computers of their era, the most complicated devices made by humans.”
Movie Sanitation Smells
Congress has passed a law that allows companies to “sanitize” (read: take out) parts of movies they don’t like. “The implications are dramatic: If sanitizers can alter a creative work without the permission of the author, will they be able to redo the Bible? Shakespeare? What, in short, does intellectual property mean anymore?”
A Passion For Legs And Feet
What matters above all else in ballet? Legs and feet. There’s an ideal to be attained, but that fashion has changed over the years, writes Clement Crisp.
Where Art And Technology Intersect
Technology holds a big place in our imagination these days. And artists are looking at the intersections of tech and art. “The Cyberarts Festival’s 70 exhibitions combine computer technology with dance, poetry, music and digital images. Many of them, like Imaging Place, use satellite pictures and the global positioning system to examine the effects of location on memory and thinking.”
Promoters Sue Universal For Overcharging Artists
Two US music promoters are suing recording giant Universal for $100 million, claiming the company forced them to submit falsely inflated invoices. “Universal used these to make top names such as Nelly unwittingly pay for other artists’ promotion, the promoters say.”
Krens: Conquering The World, Guggenheim-Style
Despite a showdown with his museum’s biggest benefactor several months ago, Guggenheim Museum director Thomas Krens hasn’t ratcheted down his ambitious plans. “The key to his business plan is hiring big-name architects to design buildings that will become tourist destinations in themselves, like the Guggenheim’s Frank Lloyd Wright building on Fifth Avenue or its Frank Gehry-designed Guggenheim in Bilbao, Spain. And though the museum’s new leaders express caution about the budget, they share Mr. Krens’s vision.”
Who Knew? Great Libraries Draw Readers
Two bright new library buildings in the UK are proving very popular. “In a development watched with envy by library authorities across the country, visitor numbers have soared at the new libraries in Gosport, Hampshire, and Brighton, East Sussex. Book borrowing has gone up too. The pattern supports the official view that the decline in library use is the result of financial neglect rather than an inexorable flight from reading.”
Harper Collins Sees a Down Year
Publisher Harper Collins reports a 30 percent drop in profits. “The firm was hit by Sean Connery’s decision last month to scrap plans for an autobiography, and it has also been plagued by rumours of in-fighting among executives, which it strongly denies. Operating profits were down from £15.4 million to £10.7m in the year to June 2004, according to accounts published last week. Turnover was down slightly at £165.5m.”
Record Price For A Musical Instrument
A bidder paid a record $2 million for musical instrument Friday, buying the “Lady Tennant” Stradivarious. “Made when Antonio Stradivari was 55 years old, the violin earned its name from one of its former owners – the wife of Scottish industrialist Sir Charles Tennant, who was given the instrument by her husband in 1900. The earliest known owner of the violin was the French player Charles Philippe Lafont, a contemporary of Nicolo Paganini.”