Category: issues

“Congress approved the recopyrighting, limited to foreign works, to align U.S. policy with an international copyright treaty. But the Golan plaintiffs—a group that includes educators, performers, and film archivists—argue that bigger principles are at stake. Does Congress have the constitutional right to remove works from the public domain? And if it does, what’s stopping it from plucking out even more freely available works?”

The formerly run-down Balfron Tower public housing project in East London, where artists are being given temporary leases as the complex is being converted to higher-end apartments, is the latest high-profile example of a process that “presents regeneration not through its long-term effects – the transfer of residency from poor to rich – but as a much shorter journey from neglect to creativity.”

“A new book of research reveals that civic leaders and arts patrons tend to fall prey to specific planning fallacies when it comes to building new museums, performing-arts centers, and cultural expansions.”

“The directive puts the burden of proof of how the ivory was obtained on the instrument owner instead of on federal agents. They don’t have to prove anything. All they have to say is, ‘You don’t have the right documentation,’ and your object is gone.”

“Philadelphia’s art funding has been through a tumultuous period the last few years, with major foundations like Annenberg moving to Los Angeles, the Pew Charitable Trusts – which funds the Center for Arts and Heritage – moving to Washington D.C., and the William Penn Foundation putting a lot of its money behind audience development.”

“After talking about renovations for more than a decade, business and arts leaders say, quick action is needed to prevent the buildings from falling further into disrepair and to avoid ever-higher maintenance and construction costs.”

“In our agreement, the News & Record has committed to publishing at least 70 stories about local arts topics during the next year. That’s 70 more stories than we would have published without this agreement.”

Laurie Gwen Shapiro travels to Historic Jamestowne for the 400th anniversary reenactment of Pocahontas’s wedding to English settler John Rolfe – and finds the chieftain’s daughter is still important to a surprising variety of individuals, from tourism officials (of course) to archaeologists to First-Families-of-Virginia aristocrats to native tribes still trying to get Federal recognition.

Scott Timberg argues that the late American Top 40 host has ” been drafted posthumously into a war he never fought, and become a symbol in a debate in which he never took a side.”

“After the controversy re-emerged this weekend, Iveri issued a statement saying she was ‘shocked and saddened to be called homophobic’ – and that it wasn’t her fault.”