MIT has shut down a new file-sharing system set up by students. “The music service had its official start one week ago but within hours, music companies, including the Universal Music Group, complained that they had not granted – or been paid for – the required legal permission to make the copies of their songs used by the system.”
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How About Flex-Pricing For Recordings?
“Doesn’t it seem odd that these fully automated online e-commerce systems, with software that ought to be able to track and respond to customer behavior instantly, unimaginatively mandate the same fixed price across the board? One of the Internet’s supposed strengths is its ability to let supply and demand drive prices up and down in real time. Couldn’t the music companies use the Internet as a way to introduce popularity-based pricing, meaning that the songs with the highest demand would cost the most? Compared to eBay, charging 99 cents for every song is price fixing. And while 99 cents for my favorite song seems fair, what about my not-so-favorite songs?”
French Police Find 250 Stolen Paintings In Van
“More than 250 stolen paintings have been recovered from a parked van in Paris, French police have said. The haul includes one Picasso, two works by French painter Raoul Dufy and one by Dutch artist Kees van Dongen.”
Measuring Up – Is Greatness An Absolute?
Terry Teachout ponders Charles Murray’s attempts to statistically analyze “greatness.” “The question of whether or not it is possible to demonstrate objectively the existence of absolute standards of aesthetic quality will probably always remain open. That such absolute standards do exist, however, seems to me indisputable. No matter how aggressively postmodern thinkers may deny the significance of the consensus of judgment—or the overwhelming dominance of Western culture—the whole of human history and experience is arrayed against them. It cannot be coincidental that, as Clement Greenberg observed, ‘the people who try hardest and look hardest end up, over the ages, by agreeing with one another in the main’.”
CBS Considers Dropping “Reagan”
BBS is apparently considering dropping the airing of a mini-series on Ronald Reagan, after conservative groups protested that they believe the program to be biased against the former US president. “The possible cancellation of the mini-series was first reported on Monday in Daily Variety. A CBS spokesman declined to comment, and it was unclear why the network would consider bowing to pressure.”
Florida Public Radio Station Attacked Over Dropping Music
South Florida public radio station WLRN recently replaced some music programming with news from the BBC, prompting charges of racism from some listeners. “It has also raised questions about whether the publicly licensed station’s programming should be aimed at drawing in the largest number of listeners, the goal of commercial stations, or serving smaller fragments of South Florida’s ethnic and cultural mosaic.”
Miami Performing Arts Center Delayed And Over Budget
Miami’s new $344 million performing arts center has been beset by delays and cost overruns. “Center officials recently moved the expected opening date to early 2006, over 16 months behind what was originally hoped for. Meanwhile, cost overruns that accrue from design changes, material shortages or flawed work will eventually have to be covered by someone — either the county or the contractors.”
Who Will Pay To Run Miami PAC?
Construction delays and budget overruns are only part of the problem facing Miami’s new performing arts center. How will the facility find money to stay open once it debuts? “At this point $15.2 million a year in expenses has been identified but only $12.5 million in revenue, leaving a $2.7 million yearly deficit. With the collapse of the Florida Philharmonic Orchestra, the PAC is left with only four resident companies. They’re scheduled to fill only 125 nights a year of the combined total of 730 nights available in the PAC’s two biggest performance halls. That’s less than 20 percent.
Disney – The West Rises Up?
LA’s Disney Hall is a great accomplishment, sure. And a good place to hear music, writes Joshua Kosman. “But it’s also a great roar of regional pride, a sweeping claim for the importance of the arts in a city and state long derided as philistine. It promises to strike a powerful blow – perhaps even, at long last, the fatal one – against the cultural mythology that says America’s musical life begins on the East Coast and peters out somewhere around the Mississippi River.”
Teenage Classical Superstar
What is it about 16-year-old Hayley Westrena? Her 13-song medley of ballads sold more than 290,000 copies in Britain in seven weeks, installing ‘Pure’ at the top of Britain’s classical music charts. (The album will be released in the United States on April 9.) Now, with Ms. Westenra signed up for a $4.5 million five-album contract, Decca may well be tingling with the feeling that salvation is nigh.”