“The issue of patents for software and business methods has been causing a stir in America ever since the Patent and Trademark Office started issuing patents on internet business methods in 1998, most famously that for one-click shopping. Proponents argue that these patents provide the necessary incentives to innovate at a time when more inventions are computer-related. Critics claim that such intellectual monopolies hinder innovation, because software giants can use them to attack fledgling competitors. Moreover, as software is often built on the achievements of others, writing code could become a legal hurdle race. By analogy, if Haydn had patented the symphony form, Mozart would have been in trouble.”
Tag: 09.04.03
Tobacco Company To Sponsor Arts Despite Ad Ban
In Canada a new ban on tobacco advertising has arts groups worried that they’ll lose some major sponsoships. But at least one of the big tobacco companies – Imperial Tobacco – “has decided to keep funding the arts, despite a new federal law that bans tobacco advertising.”
Arts Center Or Convention Expansion?
A long-planned arts center in Vancouver is in danger after the British Columbia provincial government said it might want to use the land set aside for the center to expand the city’s convention center.
The Mystery Of The Unpublished Agatha Christie Play
“Calgary’s Vertigo Mystery Theatre this fall will stage the world premiere of Chimneys, a play Christie wrote in the 1930s. The play originally was set to open at the Embassy Theatre in London in 1931. For some reason, it was dropped at the last minute and never heard from again until the Vertigo troupe found a tattered copy of the script when they moved offices earlier in the year.” Just how did it get there?
Opera Amidst The Microchips
For two decades, Irene Dalis has been at the helm of the opera company she helped to found in her hometown of San Jose. Opera San Jose is a major success story in a tough field, and Dalis gets much of the credit for keeping the company vibrant through good times and bad. “We don’t pretend to be something that we’re not. We’re certainly not going to be a San Francisco Opera. Their budget is around $60 million. Ours is under $3 million. But we have other values. Our company is the only one of its kind in America and it’s not because I’m such a genius. I’m copying the format used in Germany where each city of 100,000 or more has its own opera company and they hire singers by the year.”
The Importance Of Opera House Architecture
“Marion Oliver McCaw Hall, which opened in August, is one of the best-sounding opera houses in the country. With sonics vivid and full-bodied, the building seems to work well on both sides of the proscenium. It’s just too bad the building, inaugurated with a new Seattle Opera production of Wagner’s Parsifal, isn’t a better piece of architecture.” So says Dallas critic Scott Cantrell, scouting other cities for ideas to inspire Dallas’s own soon-to-be-built opera house. “Seattle’s approach certainly plays up clichés about the two cities. Dallas is supposed to be about dazzle and prestige, Seattle about living comfortably and not making a fuss.”
Hoping For A Quiet TIFF
It’s been a rough couple of years for the Toronto International Film Festival, with events from the 9/11 attacks to the SARS outbreak having a devastating impact on what has traditionally been one of North America’s most important film fests. But as critics prepare to descend on the Ontario capitol for this year’s TIFF, it seems likely that the festival will bounce back strong from its trials. The fact is that critics have a great time in Toronto, and the festival is famously well-run, in contrast to the haphazard feel of some other major festivals. Add in the panning that Cannes received this year, and Toronto may be poised to regain its position in the upper echelon of festivals.
The Museum That History Forgot
“In the dusty remote reaches of Uzbekistan, in a city so desolate that it served as the site of a Soviet chemical weapons factory, sits what may be one of the most important collections of 20th Century Soviet art in the world. This collection, virtually unknown during the Soviet era, has been revitalized by the attention of a group of art-loving expatriates whose efforts helped spur the completion in late 2002 of a long-stalled museum building, realizing the dream of its founder and the small cadre of dedicated women who for years kept the museum going under almost impossibly difficult conditions… However, although the security guards, curators and gift shop attendants all appear for work each day in the marble-clad edifice, the ‘new’ museum – designed in 1971 – remains shuttered.”
Alarm Bells, Stravinsky, What’s The Difference?
The opening night gala at the San Francisco Symphony was going off beautifully, with 2,700 patrons enjoying the glitter and glitz of the evening, not to mention some fine music. Over 1,500 supporters had dinner at Davies Symphony Hall, and the orchestra was reportedly in top form for the performance under music director Michael Tilson Thomas. And then, in the middle of Stravinsky’s Firebird Suite, someone pulled the fire alarm.
Whither The Record Industry?
“The popularity of Apple’s iTunes song service has demonstrated that customers like to pick and choose their songs online. New statistics from the music industry indicate that labels are shipping more singles to stores, too. But whether the stats signal the return of the single is still a bit of a puzzle.” The industry denies that it is making any sort of concentrated effort to market the single more heavily as an alternative to illegal song-swapping, but “faced with falling CD sales for the third year in a row, it’s to the music industry’s benefit to offer music in formats that consumers will pay for.”