Category: issues

Christopher Lloyd: “[When my newspaper clients lost their freelancer budgets entirely,] I had a choice to make. Take Mutter’s high road, and refuse to keep supplying film reviews for free. … Or, I could keep slaving away without pay.  … I opted to go the second way. After all, I knew I wasn’t going to drop my passion for film criticism. If I was going to do it, I might as well have it published.”

Under the plan, “tax deductions for charitable donations will be capped at 28% starting in 2011 for individuals earning more than $200,000 and joint-filers whose income tops $250,000. … So an arts philanthropist donating a $1-million gift to a museum or performance group would get a $350,000 tax break this year, but only $280,000 in 2011.”

“Art is often discussed in reverent tones, we invest in it, create daunting palaces for it. … The idea that seriousness is somehow a measure of value and that art needs to be treated seriously all the time is a weird one. Much of the time, people value things that make them laugh, cry, scream, think or [get] inspired – much more than they value the worthy and the serious.”

The British Columbia government slashed arts funding last year, and the province’s arts community expects the cuts to remain in place. But some advocates are adding another point to the usual argument that arts funding has a multiplier effect on the larger economy. “More importantly, despite what some politicians think, it’s good and shrewd politics to support the arts. That’s what Prime Minister Stephen Harper found out in Quebec.”

“The Bloomington Area Arts Council has laid off the entire paid staff at a financially struggling arts center. The five employees at the John Waldron Arts Center were told about the layoffs Wednesday. The center is expected to remain open, staffed by volunteers.”

“Escondido’s performing arts center might become a conglomeration of government offices and retail businesses if city officials follow through on a budget-cutting plan that would shut down the financially struggling facility, but such proposals face a wide variety of hurdles.”

Under the doctrine of fair use, a writer may freely quote a limited amount of copyrighted material. Documentary filmmakers, in an analogous situation, must get licenses for even small amounts of archival footage. Once those licenses expire, renewing them is complicated and expensive, but without such renewals, a documentary cannot legally be distributed or even restored. Could the Google Books-Authors Guild settlement push nonfiction books into a similar limbo?

“Those people in your audience who are currently 60, the ones who get hammered as ‘conservative’ and ‘unimaginative’? They were born in 1950, which means they were graduating from high school in 1968. Maybe you’ve read about 1968 … it was the year America was on fire.”

A plan to cut 1,003 jobs in Los Angeles government would fall disproportionately on the arts. “Libraries would see a 10% reduction in staff,” while the city’s “Cultural Affairs Department would experience a loss of 30 employees, or 48% of its workforce.”