Even as the majority of music industry heavies watch their album sales slip ever further down the profitability chart, and continue to tilt at the file-sharing windmill, thousands of independent musicians, producers, and fans are descending on Austin, Texas for a music festival with a decidedly pro-innovation slant. “South by Southwest, or SXSW, has a special following among artists and fans who are interested in shaping the future of the media industry. The bands and artists who appear at SXSW don’t have Britney’s marketing budget, so they turn to the Net to attract attention and find new fans. In essence, these artists and fans are vanguards.”
Blog
Not Bad For A Guy Who Just Lost His Job
Former BBC chief Greg Dyke, forced out of his position at the head of the UK’s public broadcaster following the furor over reporter Andrew Gilligan’s story accusing the Blair government of “sexing up” a dossier concerning Iraqi weapons capabilities, has been honored with a lifetime achievement award by the Royal Television Society. BBC staffers rallied to Dyke’s side when he resigned in January, and much was made of how popular a leader he was.
Archaeologists: Stonehenge Tunnel A Bad Idea
Archaeologists are protesting the British government’s plan to build a £200 million 2.1km tunnel tunnel under Stonehenge. They charge that the project will result in “irreversible damage to the World Heritage site”.
CD Sales Up 8 Percent In Australia
Recording companies have been screaming that music downloading is killing there business. So why are sales going up? “After several years warning of dire consequences for record companies because of rampant music downloading and copying, the Australian Record Industry Association yesterday released sales figures for 2003 showing an increase of nearly 8 per cent.”
Ireland Goes Chick-Lit
“Irish literature, that glorious outpouring of eloquence and wit created by great men such as Jonathan Swift, William Butler Yeats, James Joyce, Sean O’Casey and George Bernard Shaw has in our time fallen into mainly female hands.”
Idolizing Lit Idol
Lit Idol was conceived as a way to spark interest in writers (well, Pop Idol has done pretty well for ___ “Some 1,400 aspiring authors entered the Lit Idol contest. Five judges, including Curtis Brown’s Ali Gunn, narrowed the field to five finalists. About 900 people voted online, which counted 25 percent. The final tally was taken at the book fair Monday night, where about 150 publishers, agents and authors cast their votes after the finalists read.”
Tough New European Intellectual Property Law
“The European Parliament has approved a controversial piracy law that would allow local police to raid the homes and offices of suspected intellectual-property pirates, search their financial records and even freeze suspects’ bank accounts. The European Union’s directive covers selling everything from pirated CDs and counterfeit toys to fake Chanel and Viagra.”
Theatre – The New Journalism?
Suddenly, there are all sorts of plays in London telling true stories – theatre as journalism – or journalism as theatre. “The curtain rises on a new hunt for reality – or semblance of reality.” But is this theatre? Journalism? Both? And what happens to the facts in the process?
Downloaders Aren’t Pirates, Court Told
People who share digital files of music and movies aren’t pirates, an internet advocacy group tells a Canadian judge. “The music industry’s “war against file sharing,” if successful, will mean “significant collateral damage” to the rights and interests of Internet users, a federal court was told Monday.”
Renaissance Painter Composed Music For His Painting
A Renaissance scholar has discovered that the musical notes painted by Filippino Lippi in a famous 15th Century painting “Madonna and Child with Singing Angels is original music probably composed by the painter himself. “The first several notes of the composition are exactly the beginning notes of a popular Renaissance song, ‘Fortuna Desperata.’ After the first few notes, however, the piece does not resemble Fortuna.”