Category: issues

“Patent ‘trolls,’ as they are called, purchase large numbers of patents in the hope of using the threat of a patent-infringement suit to extort a patent-license fee from a company that makes a similar product; the product may or may not infringe, which is often very difficult to determine, but the alleged infringer may decide to pay the licensee fee, if it is not too large, to avoid the cost of litigation.”

“I believe branding is more important for nonprofits than for-profits because nonprofits are in the business of cooperating, more than competing. Each nonprofit has to find an irreplaceable niche. A branding process helps you figure out what that is. That seems healthy to me.”

“Much of the bond money became available because a plan to spend $38 million overhauling Boettcher Concert Hall, which voters approved directly, fell through. That proposal called for the CSO to match the funds but it was unable to raise the money.”

“When did you last hear of a nonprofit arts organization acquiring another brand or creating one itself with a different name? It is, at minimum, an interesting idea.”

“The venue wasn’t programming its nearly 3,000-seat main stage during the better part of the week. So simply adding more shows to the lineup was one of the first items on the to-do list of president and CEO John Schreiber, who took over in July 2011. ‘There was a canard out there that people didn’t want to come to Newark during the week. That’s not true,’ he said.”

“Given … the push for legislation to combat such behaviors (despite the fact that no one can seem to agree on exactly which behaviors the category of ‘trolling’ subsumes), it is critical to interrogate where the term comes from and the ways in which discussions of trolling butt up against questions of anonymity, safety, and aggression online.”

Is this a problem for the arts?

The Federal Trade Commission thinks so – and may soon sue the ubiquitous giant of search.

“For years, Iranian officials have talked about creating a ‘halal’ internet – a religiously acceptable internal network isolated from the World Wide Web. Its purpose, they claim, would be to provide national cybersecurity and promote Islamic moral values.”

“In one of the most beautiful spots in the Balkans, the former Yugoslavia’s most celebrated film director … [is erecting] a town within a town that will echo in wood and stone the region’s greatest work of fiction. Published in 1945 by the Nobel laureate Ivo Andric, The Bridge on the Drina tells the violent story of Bosnia through events on and around Visegrad’s magnificent 16th-century Ottoman bridge.”