The recording industry wants to protect its copyrights and outlaw file-sharing. But file-sharing is a slippery technology that evolves quickly and beats circumvention. “The only solution, some say, is to legitimize the new technology, just as old record-copying technologies have been legalized, and to license file sharing itself, while also offering pay services that are far superior to peer-to-peer networks such as Kazaa. The trouble right now is that technology companies like Kazaa have been trying to get licences for this music. They want to do it legitimately. They want to pay artists. The trouble is that the five multibillion-dollar record companies have refused to give them licences for the past five years…”
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A Dedicated (Writing) Life
Book dedications can be over the top, but they often express a little piece of the writer’s personal situation at the time the book is published. Looking back over a career of books written, one can see an archaeology of personal fragments expressed in dedications…
Ravinia Denies Chicago Symphony Report
Chicago’s Ravinia Festival – longtime summer home of the Chicago Symphony – says it doesn’t plan to “drastically reduce its number of Chicago Symphony Orchestra concerts in future seasons, despite a report suggesting otherwise in Monday’s Crain’s Chicago Business…” The festival says that “ticket sales in Ravinia’s 3,200-seat pavilion are down 5 percent so far for CSO concerts compared with last summer. But reducing the number of CSO performances is only one option to be considered when the orchestra’s contract with Ravinia comes up for renewal after next season.”
Recording Industry Buys Political Insider
We don’t want to be cynical, we really don’t. But Monday’s announcement by the Recording Industry Association of America that its new leader will be US Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist’s former chief of staff gives us pause at a time when Congress is trying to decide new rules for the digital age and the recording industry is lobbying for laws to keep an old power structure in place. Former RIAA head Hilary Rosen left the job earlier this year. She “had close ties to the Democratic Party, but that turns out to be not so useful now. If we get a new law relating to digital copyright, it will come through Republican-dominated committees.”
Recording Industry Goes After Consumers
“The RIAA, the Washington trade group that represents the world’s biggest record labels, has filed more than 900 subpoenas since June 26 to gather information to file civil lawsuits against hundreds of users of file-sharing programs. Legal experts say this is the first time copyright law has been used to crack down on average consumers. Previously, copyright battles have typically pitted companies against other businesses, or against people who have intentionally tried to make money pirating copyright-protected material.”
Art-On-Demand
London’s National Gallery has introduced a digitizing/printing system that allows visitors to print out copies of artworks in its collection. “The ‘print on demand’ technology will allow visitors to browse through and print in reproduction quality A3, A4 and A5 size prints. By 2005 the gallery hopes to have the whole collection available.”
Making The Case For Russian Opera
Alex Ross writes that conductor Valery Gergiev is “the fiery angel of the Russian repertory, who has seemingly sworn not to get a full night’s sleep until Glinka’s operas are as familiar as Puccini’s.” His recent orgy of Russian operas performed at Lincoln Center wasn’t the biggest attendance driver but it made an excellent case for the golden era of Russian opera.
Remembering Emerson (If Not Reading Him)
It’s the 200th anniversary of Ralph Waldo Emerson’s birth. John Updike notes that Emerson is much honored, but less often read these days. “Emerson, with a cobbled-together mythology, in melodious accents that sincerely feigned the old Christian reassurances, sought to instill confidence and courage in his democratic audience, and it is for this, rather than for his mellowed powers of observation and wit, that he is honored, if honored more than read.”
Royal Shakespeare’s Business Leader Quits
The Royal Shakespeare Company’s managing director Chris Foy has quit the company. He was seen as the force behind the company’s unpopular structural moves in the past few years. “Some theatre insiders acknowledged Mr Foy’s talent but felt the moment was right to call time on the management ‘gobbledegook’ of business involvement in the arts.”
Berlin Slashes Away At Its Cultural Support
“Since the 18th century almost every German city has had a subsidised theatre, opera and orchestra. In Berlin the local authority spends up to €200 (£141) on each theatre or concert hall seat every year whether filled or not. But the city can no longer afford it. With debts of nearly €50bn, the city is effectively bankrupt.” So it is slashing its culture budget, laying off arts workers and reigning in expenditures on the city’s arts, to the anguished cries of artists and citizens.