Hollywood movie studios are suing owners of computer servers that facilitate movie downloading. “The defendants this time run servers that use BitTorrent, now the program of choice for online sharers of large files owing to its immunity to industry attempts to confound file-swappers with bogus decoy files. ‘Today’s actions are aimed at individuals who deliberately set up and operate computer servers and Web sites that, by design, allow people to infringe copyrighted motion pictures’.”
Tag: 12.15.04
Washington State Tax Agents Go After Art Collectors
Inspired by stories of New York art collectors avoiding sales tax on their purchases, Washington State revenue agents subpoenaed records of an art shipper and went after state residents who hadn’t paid a “use” tax (essentially a sales tax) on their out-of-state art purchases. Thousands of collectors may have been dinged for the taxes – plus penalties, which can run as high as 50 percent…
From Blog To Book
Where are our new writers coming from? Some publishers think it’s blogs. “Sometimes publishers are interested in publishing elements of the blogs in book form; mostly they simply enjoy the blogger’s writing and want to publish a novel or nonfiction book by the blogger, usually on a topic unrelated to the blog.”
The New Barnes – Different, Maybe Better?
Perhaps the Barnes art will benefit from a new setting, writes Roberta Smith. “Of course, it is great to see paintings in an intimate setting that glows with the patina of time and bears the imprint of a collector’s personal vision. But it is also correct to ask whether a collector’s wishes, especially when they are restrictive, must be observed in perpetuity. The Barnes collection is not the Sistine Chapel ceiling. Barnes didn’t make the art; he bought it, one movable object at a time. Very few things remain the same forever, and they change largely because of human need.”