The class action award to freelancers this week for violating electronic copyright could result in big payouts. “Besides Lexis Nexis, database companies involved include Proquest, Dow Jones and West Group—as well as The Times, whose online archives include more than 100,000 articles written by some 27,000 freelance writers. The Times and The San Diego Union-Tribune are also liable on the print-publishing side, joining publishers including Time Inc., the Washington Post Company and the Hearst Corporation.”
Blog
In The UK: A Bold New Arts Participation Plan
The UK government has promised that “within 10 years every school-leaver will have had access to live arts and culture, including taking part in public performances. But it gave no indication of how this will be paid for. The new proposal has been dubbed Creative Sparks, and Culture.”
O’Toole Attacks Theatre
Peter O’Toole has blasted the state of today’s theatre. “Reserving his most corrosive words for the Royal Shakespeare Company and The Royal Court, O’Toole said things have got so bad that up-and-coming young actors are no longer interested in treading the boards.”
Future Of Technology At The Supreme Court
Attorneys argued before the US Supreme Court Tuesday over whether file-sharing networks should be legal. The court’s decision will have a major impact on future technology development. The main question taken up by the court seemed to be how to protect copyrights without restraining future tech.
Sweet Charity To Go On After All
Just days after canceling a planned Broadway run of a revival of “Sweet Charity”, producers say they’ll open the show anyway. “I spent the whole weekend on the telephone with Christina Applegate, who made a passionate and compelling case for moving forward with the Broadway plans. Her doctors also confirmed this morning that she will be ready and able to resume performances on April 18.”
Use Of BBC Internet Streaming Radio Soars
“Online demands to hear radio programmes passed nine million in February – up more than 25% on the previous month. The show which is most requested is Radio 4’s long-running soap opera The Archers, with Chris Moyles’ Radio 1 breakfast show in second spot. Online listening to digital-only networks, such as 6 Music, has soared by 83% in the last year.”
Pianist Grant Johannesen, 83
Mr. Johannesen was a sensitive player who was more interested in exploring musical byways that fascinated him than in repeating the warhorses of the repertory, and as a teacher, he advised his students to follow a similar path.
Why All The Boring Memoirs?
“Some blame reality TV for our social woes (MTV’s “Real World” encourages alcoholism, “The Apprentice” is a guide to corporate backstabbing, blah, blah, blah). Allow me to chime in and add my voice to the chorus: Reality television, in part, intensifies our voyeuristic appetite for the tawdry details of the lives of others. On television, we call those details trash (although suit-wearing executives at TV stations call them “rating boosters”). But in book form, it’s more likely to be deemed literature.”
I Remember Susan
Susan Sontag was a complicated and difficult person. “A good part of her characteristic ‘effect’ – what one might call her novelistic charm – has not yet been put into words. Among other things, Sontag was a great comic character: Dickens or Flaubert or James would have had a field day with her. The carefully cultivated moral seriousness – strenuousness might be a better word – co-existed with a fantastical, Mrs Jellyby-like absurdity.”
America’s Band
The Eagles haven’t released a new album in 25 years, but they still pac arena, and their Greatest Hits has sold 28 million copies – the most of any recording in history. “It’s almost as if what the band stands for has become more important than what it actually does. Somehow, quietly and gradually, the Eagles became America’s band, representing the nation’s aesthetic and sense of self in ways Bruce Springsteen or Lee Greenwood never could. It’s not patriotism, exactly — you’d be hard-pressed to find the words “America” or “U.S.A.” in their lyrics — but it speaks to the American identity on an almost subliminal level, evoking a psychic landscape far more immediate than the iconic purple mountains and amber waves of grain.”