Hollywood movie studios are in court suing the maker of a software program that makes backup copies of DVDs. The company being sued says it’s really not about piracy at all. “This is about whether or not it is legal for consumers to make backup copies of DVDs they own. Either it is or it isn’t. We say it is legal for consumers to do whatever they want in the privacy of their own homes.”
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Why Digital Downloading Is Bad For Music
“The truth is that digital distribution is bad for artists for the same reason that it is bad for record companies (and good for fans): it makes too much music available. As content becomes increasingly ubiquitous, it loses value; just look at how few print publications are able to charge successfully for their online counterparts. While there are certainly some people who are willing to pay for digital music, few of them appear to be willing to pay that much for it.”
A New Way To Hear/Present Concerts
The way that we go to the opera, the theatre and the concert has hardly changed for centuries. The great majority of such attendance takes place in venues conceived on the model of churches. The performers do their thing at one end. We, the audience, sit silently in rows in the rest of the building and look at them doing it. This can be a difficult and even intimidating experience for those who are not used to it, especially in badly designed or unsuitable spaces. But you have only to attend a performance in a different kind of venue to see at once the possibilities for addressing the access problem in a different way.” The London Symphony has a new venue. “It is not just a huge step forward for this most dynamic of Britain’s orchestras, consolidating the LSO’s role in the vanguard of orchestral music in London. It is also a step down a path that other performing arts organisations of all kinds will surely have to follow eventually – if they have the funding – of changing the terms on which orchestras meet their audiences.”
Congress To Investigate Payola
Senator Orrin Hatch says he’ll start Congressional hearings into payola to radio stations for playing music. Current payola deals include exclusive arrangements between radio stations and independent promoters who guarantee the station a fixed monthly or annual payment. In return, songs ‘suggested’ by such an independent promoter are the most likely to be added to playlists. This allegedly is used by Clear Channel and Radio One.”
Savannah Symphony Folds
The 49-year-old Savannah Symphony, stuck with a $1.3 million deficit, has canceled the rest of its season. “I think the community has spoken. Savannah residents desire a symphony orchestra, I think, but there’s been too much history with this organization as it stands today. The community sent us signals that [an orchestra] should start again with a new slate.”
Scottish Government Helped Save Titian
The Scottish government gave £2.5 million of the £11.6 million needed to buy the Scottish National Gallery’s Titian acquired this week. “I am most impressed with the Scottish Executive and Mike Watson in particular for giving us £2.5 million at a difficult time. It’s a very enlightened thing for a government to do. A direct treasury grant in Scotland for something as rarefied and distinguished as this is a splendid thing.” But the director of the National gallery warns that other art treasures are in dancer of being sold and taken out of the country.
A Binding “Kiss”
The most-talked-about work at this year’s Tate Britain show of contemporary work is Cornelia Parker’s “The Distance (A Kiss with String Attached)” that binds up the lovers in Rodin’s famous sculpture “The Kiss” in string. “It’s my homage to two artists and a way of showing that love is more complicated than just a kiss. In fact, Dante’s punishment of the illicit lovers was to condemn them to be entwined in an embrace for eternity. ‘The Kiss’ used to be considered indecent. People thought it should be covered up, which in effect is what I’ve done. I don’t think I’ve hidden the eroticism. If you conceal things, they become more charged.”
National Book Critics Circle Awards
” ‘Atonement,’ Ian McEwan’s unlikely best seller about the meaning of fiction, was among the winners Wednesday night of a National Book Critics Circle prize. In the general nonfiction category, which included William Langewiesche’s controversial ‘American Ground,’ Samantha Power won for ‘A Problem from Hell: America and the Age of Genocide’.”
Progressive Pricing
When “The Play What I Wrote” opens on Broadway next week, it will cost $1 to get in. The next night it costs $2. The next $3. “The Play What I Wrote,” which revolves around a comedy act that’s breaking up, features a surprise celebrity guest star each night. In London, those guests included Roger Moore, Jerry Hall, Sting and Twiggy.
Heavy Reading (How Do They Do It?)
So you’re a book editor and it’s your job to read books. But there are so many of them. So you go through maybe ten a week – a good 400+ in a year… “So how do professional readers get through the required reading for their ‘plum’ jobs? It is a given that most people in the industry have to read (manuscripts) outside of work hours, in their own time. There’s too much going on otherwise.”