Category: issues

This week the US Congress could vote on a major copyright bill that would radically redefine the legal use of creative work. “The Senate might vote on HR2391, the Intellectual Property Protection Act, a comprehensive bill that opponents charge could make many users of peer-to-peer networks, digital-music players and other products criminally liable for copyright infringement. The bill would also undo centuries of “fair use” — the principle that gives Americans the right to use small samples of the works of others without having to ask permission or pay.”

“Members of a theatrical production staged the largest mass defection of Cuban performers to date yesterday as 43 cast members of Havana Night Club applied for political asylum at a US federal court in Las Vegas… The performers said they had decided to stay in the US after the authorities told them they could be jailed or barred from performing in Cuba.”

Evolution is no longer the last word on lerning about life in one Pennsylvania school district. “With a vote last month, a school board in a rural south-central Pennsylvania community is believed to have become the first in the nation to mandate the teaching of ‘intelligent design,’ which holds that the universe is so complex that it must have been created by an unspecified higher power.”

Entertainment journalism isn’t really journalism at all, writes Geoff Pevere. “You have to wonder if the admittedly integrity-challenged dodge of ‘entertainment journalism’ hasn’t given up, bought fishnet stockings, miniskirt and stiletto heels and hung out the red light. When an actor walks into a room full of alleged professionals and is greeted by a shout, the jig is up. We’re just fans with better access.”

It is one of the topics that gets whispered about in arts circles, but rarely confronted head-on: a generation of great philanthropists is beginning to die out, with no replacements in sight. “These folks were more than just rich people who gave their money away out of a sense of noblesse oblige… They weren’t especially interested in having their names on buildings. In their best days, you’d see them — frequently — in the buildings of the organizations they supported and in other arts venues they simply found interesting.” These days, corporations are replacing individuals in major giving, and that doesn’t bode well for art, music, theatre, or the people who make it.

Newcastle and Gateshead were two of the UK’s most blighted cities. But a new wave of culture-based rejuvenation is sweeping the area, with impressive results. “Today the derelict wharves and warehouses have been transformed into restaurants, art galleries and loft apartments… The district, known as the Quayside, thrums with activity day and night. The Quayside’s most impressive projects are the Baltic Center for Contemporary Art, the Sage Music Center and a pedestrian bridge over the Tyne that tilts upward to let ships pass.”

European museums are rapidly being forced to confront a new economic reality in which the centuries-old tradition of government funding appears to be withering on the vine. “Such is the crisis in government financing for British museums that their acquisitions budgets can no longer match market prices. In the case of the Tate, its buying power is about 5 percent of what it was two decades ago… Is this the moment when corporate sponsorship of major arts institutions finally becomes respectable in Europe? The answers seem obvious. How else can museums remain vigorous?”

Canada’s artists are now considered self-employed. “Performing artists have had the tax status of independent contractors for many years in Canada. In recent years, however, the Canada Revenue Agency had changed their interpretations of some statutes and concluded that artists were, in fact, employees. While such a move would have given artists some immediate benefits such as EI, it also would have deprived them of numerous long-term deductions that allow them to make ends meet. If performers were employees, they would no longer be able to write off any transportation, housing or other expenses that they incurred while trying to make a living across this geographically vast country.”

The city of Seattle is telling Seattle Opera and Pacific Northwest Ballet that they’ll have to pay a share of the bill on their new home. “The city is asking the opera and ballet to come up with $114,000 each to pay the first year of debt under the council’s plan. That amount will increase to $227,000 for each of the arts groups in 2006.”

“The Ford Foundation’s Leveraging Investments in Creativity initiative, which conveniently spells LINC as an acronym, surveyed Bay Area artists over a 15-year period and came up with some important and distressing findings: Sixty-three percent of artists earned less than $7,000 from their art. Seventy-eight percent of artists worked more than one job, and all artists surveyed had a median gross income from all sources of $35,000. In 2004, artists have less time to spend on their art than they did 15 years ago.”