Mounting Internet Protests Against International Anti-Piracy Deal "European activists who participated in American Internet protests last month learned that there was political power to be harnessed on the Web. Now they are putting that knowledge to use in an effort to defeat new global rules for intellectual property."

The New York Times 02/06/12

email this story | Posted 02/06/12@07:05AM

Report: UK Arts Sector Suffers From Under-Investment In Workers "Many of these barriers are a consequence of the distinctive structure of the creative labour market - the sector is characterised by a prevalence of SMEs [small and medium enterprises], micro-businesses, start-ups, freelancers and project-based work. This structural feature is responsible for an overall market failure in which there is under-investment in human capital, fewer training opportunities, insufficiently structured career progression and unfair access to jobs and opportunities."

TheStage 02/03/12

email this story | Posted 02/06/12@06:55AM

Twelve Arts Donors Among This Year's 50 Biggest American Philanthropists "Reporters for the Chronicle found specific donations of at least $1 million to arts and cultural institutions by 12 of the 50, totaling $213.4 million. The Philanthropy 50, as the Chronicle calls them, gave $10.4 billion in total charitable donations in 2011, more than three times the $3.3 billion they donated in 2010."

Los Angeles Times 02/06/12

email this story | Posted 02/06/12@06:19AM

Arts Workers Need More Training And Investment, Says UK Government Report "The creative industries suffer from an 'under-investment in human capital', have too few training opportunities and unfair access to jobs, according to a new report ... written for the Creative Industries Council, co-chaired by culture secretary Jeremy Hunt and business secretary Vince Cable."

The Stage (UK) 02/03/12

email this story | Posted 02/05/12@12:01PM

French Government Bans Film Advertising Posters For Being Too Risqué France's advertising regulators have ordered that ads for the new film Les Infidèles (which co-stars Jean Dujardin of The Artist) be taken down for what one commissioner called "an attack on the dignity of women".

The Guardian (UK) 02/02/12

email this story | Posted 02/05/12@10:49AM

How Iraq's Great Universities Were Destroyed "In just 20 years, then, the Iraqi university system went from being among the best in the Middle East to one of the worst. This extraordinary act of institutional destruction was largely accomplished by American leaders who told us that the US invasion of Iraq would bring modernity, development, and women's rights. Instead, as political scientist Mark Duffield has observed, it has partly de-modernized that country."

Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists 02/02/12

email this story | Posted 02/03/12@08:56AM

How Can Skeptics Make Convincing Religious Art? Terry Teachout observes that, in many genres, "great works of devotional art have been created by skeptics, not a few of whom were fire-breathingly militant about their doubt." How do we recognize this paradox? Teachout finds a clue in one instance where Ralph Vaughan Williams meets Plato.

The Wall Street Journal 02/03/12

email this story | Posted 02/02/12@11:58PM

Can Italy Change Italy? "When I first came to Italy thirty years ago, there was a lot of talk about change. It was always located in the very near future, but never quite in the present. The paradigm almost everybody accepted was that of an "abnormal" and in some respects archaic society on the brink of becoming normal and modern, falling into line, that is, with the powerful democracies of Northern Europe--as if there were something natural about their models."

New York Review of Books 02/01/12

email this story | Posted 02/02/12@09:12AM

Restored And Glittering, Bolshoi Theater Still Has Problems "In the three months since its reopening" following a long and troubled $700 million renovation, "performers have criticised the renovation, audiences booed its operatic premiere and complained about ticket prices, two Bolshoi ballet stars decamped to a rival theatre and other dancers suffered injuries."

Reuters 02/01/12

email this story | Posted 02/02/12@12:01AM

Asia Society Expands From New York To Houston And Hong Kong "Even as cultural organizations around the country contract because of the economic downturn, Asia Society is pushing against the tide with two new multimillion-dollar buildings, one of which opens in Hong Kong next week, the other in Houston this spring."

The New York Times 02/01/12

email this story | Posted 02/01/12@12:06AM

What Was That? (Thinking About Modernism) "Of all the topics in the humanities, modernism may be the most ill taught, because it is both too close (having flourished between the 1880s and World War I) and too distant (having been eclipsed by postmodernism, whatever that means)."

The Weekly Standard 02/06/12

email this story | Posted 01/31/12@09:32AM

Engage! Arts Council England Launches £37M Fund To Do Just That "Arts Council England has launched a £37 million fund aimed at engaging people in cultural activities in areas where involvement is low. The 'creative people and places fund' will support around 15 initiatives that will develop cultural experiences for communities that are currently not engaging with the arts."

The Stage (UK) 01/30/12

email this story | Posted 01/31/12@12:06AM

Against Copyright? Why? "Why do people do it? Because they have no fear of reprisal. Sure, some of them pay me after they are confronted or take the image down, but why should I have to find them and confront them? I guess it shouldn't be so surprising since modern journalists call aggregation "journalism," when really it's just slapping your name on someone else's work and sometimes adding a snarky couple of sentences. People say that they will link to my site. Oh, really? That's great, but I prefer cash."

Creative Loafing 01/26/12

email this story | Posted 01/30/12@06:05AM

A 'Cathedral' Barn From The Middle Ages Is Saved For The UK "Dating from 1426, early in the reign of boy-king Henry VI and not long after the death of Chaucer, the Great Barn was one of several built in an area now largely swallowed up by the outer west London suburbs." After nearly being knocked out for a Heathrow runway and sold to a neglectful developer for £1, the barn now belongs to English Heritage.

The Independent (UK) 01/30/12

email this story | Posted 01/29/12@08:56PM

The Internet Isn't An Organic, Natural Entity - And It Needs Active Defenders "The question now is whether the people who got mobilized around SOPA and PIPA, called their senators and congresspeople, and agitated on the Internet, will become a political force by making clear that candidates' record on Internet issues will be an important factor in their voting decisions. That is not yet clear. So it was definitely a short-term victory but we will see whether it will be a long-term victory."

Publishers Weekly 01/27/12

email this story | Posted 01/29/12@08:49PM

Income Inequality Might Not Matter - If We Made A Few Small Changes To Our Social Structure "Have we been too narrowly focused on income inequality when we should really be focused on a more fundamental issue: ensuring everyone has access to a minimum level of basic goods and services such as education and healthcare and an equal opportunity to earn a respectable living?"

The European 01/28/12

email this story | Posted 01/29/12@08:33AM

The Arts Should Damn Well Demand, And Receive, Government Funding "Historically, we haven't looked for government funding until, like the Los Angeles Opera in 2009, our backs were against the wall. It's easier and faster to ask for money from our friends, and the success rate is higher. ... We owe it to those donors who have gotten us this far to knock on government doors the way we knocked on theirs. And we owe it to the next generation to ensure that art doesn't become truly elitist."

San Francisco Classical Voice 01/27/12

email this story | Posted 01/29/12@08:07AM

Red Pill, Blue Pill - Is Engagement An Either/Or Thing? What if our audiences are confined by our predetermined ideas about what they are? A professor who began to get hundreds of thousands of views online wonders why he confines himself to a classroom with only a few dozen students.

ArtsJournal "Lead or Follow Debate" 01/27/12

email this story | Posted 01/27/12@09:01AM

Engagement With Art Versus Arts Institutions "The theory has long been that more exposure to art created more people interested in art. If that's true, than we're in a budding Golden Age. But if more and more activity is happening outside of our institutions (arts, education etc), then what does that mean for the institutions?" Join This week's ArtsJournal discussion Lead or Follow.

ArtsJournal - Lead or Follow 01/25/12

email this story | Posted 01/26/12@05:39AM

Sikh Group Sues Jay Leno, Calling Misfired Visual Joke 'Racist' In a recent Tonight Show segment on presidential candidates' vacation homes, Leno and his writers used, for the retreat of the famously wealthy Mitt Romney, an image of the Golden Temple, Sikhism's holiest shrine. In response, an Indian-American Sikh has filed a lawsuit against the comedian.

BBC 01/25/12

email this story | Posted 01/25/12@11:48PM

Engage Your Audience? What Does That Really Mean In The Arts? "What does pop culture have that we don't? Popular culture has the ability to create a rabid fandom. They use their celebrities, their fan likes and dislikes, and their ability to attract an authentic niche following in order to create a continual conversation."

Lead or Follow - an ArtsJournal Debate 01/24/12

email this story | Posted 01/25/12@06:03AM

Do We Need To Rethink Arts Boards? "Of course, it is difficult to find a slate of candidates clamoring to join the typical arts organization board. And that is particularly true for those candidates every organization wants - the well heeled, people of color, business and civic leaders, people with cachet."

Barry's Blog 01/22/12

email this story | Posted 01/25/12@05:20AM

Transforming A Jewish Museum In Order To Save It "The story of how the Judah L. Magnes Museum - whose collection of Judaica is the third largest in the country - became the Magnes Collection of Jewish Art and Life at the Bancroft Library of the University of California, Berkeley, ... has much to do with the evolution of the American identity museum, with its chronicles of ethnic liberation amid hardship."

The New York Times 01/23/12

email this story | Posted 01/24/12@11:51PM

Greece Turns To Its Historic Sites To Help Solve Debt Crisis "With the coffers for maintaining cultural sites quickly running dry, the authorities say they had little choice but to make the Acropolis -- along with dozens of other revered sites like Delphi and Ancient Olympia -- more attractive to foreign film crews, advertising firms and publishing houses by slashing the cost of permits."

The New York Times 01/24/12

email this story | Posted 01/24/12@09:39AM

It's Difficult to Lead If No one's Paying Attention To You It's fine to talk about leading audiences artistically, but if no one's paying attention, what's it worth? Surely engaging an audience has to be about more than creating a better marketing tool...

Lead or Follow - An ArtsJournal Debate 01/23/12

email this story | Posted 01/24/12@08:22AM

SOPA And PIPA: How The Web Won The War "The web-wide protest launched last Wednesday against the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and Protect IP Act (PIPA) made this much clear: Whatever happens with the ill-conceived legislation, which could essentially shut down any site at any time for vague 'copyright violations,' the larger battle has already been won."

New York Magazine 01/20/12

email this story | Posted 01/23/12@11:51PM

France Returns (Finally) Maori Ancestral Heads To New Zealand "On Monday, after two decades of resistance, France returned to New Zealand the mummified heads of 20 Maori warriors that have been held in French museums for more than two centuries."

The New York Times 01/23/12

email this story | Posted 01/23/12@11:42PM

What Does The Shutdown Of MegaUpload Mean For Other 'Cyberlockers'? (Not A Lot, Probably) "Not so long ago, the industry was upset about kids moving 3 megabyte MP3s around on Napster. Today, it's common to see 35 gigabyte compilations of, say, seven seasons of the TV show House, all conveniently bundled together. (Note that that's ten thousand times bigger.)"

Slate 01/20/12

email this story | Posted 01/22/12@10:11PM

What's The Point Of Occupy Wall Street In 2012? (Does It Need A Point?) "As Occupy Wall Street enters its fifth month, dislodged from most of the public spaces it had staked out around the country last fall, the movement seems weakened, its future uncertain. It sometimes appears to be driven by a series of tactics designed to maintain its public presence with no discernible strategy or goal--a kind of muddled, loose-themed ubiquity. The movement has proven adept at provoking media attention, but one may wonder what it amounts to, apart from its ability to reaffirm its status as a kind of protest brand name."

New York Review of Books 02/09/12

email this story | Posted 01/22/12@09:23AM

Christopher Dodd: Online Opposition To PIPA, SOPA Was Startlingly Effective "This is altogether a new effect," Christopher Dodd said, comparing the online movement to the Arab Spring. He could not remember seeing "an effort that was moving with this degree of support change this dramatically" in the last four decades, he added.

The New York Times 01/20/12

email this story | Posted 01/20/12@05:46AM

Report: Electronic Ticket Sellers Are Restricting Rights Of Ticket-Buyers "The conclusion: restrictive paperless-ticket practices depart from bedrock market principles by unjustifiably limiting consumer choice and suppressing free competition. They also might violate federal and state antitrust and consumer-protection laws. And they may warrant legislation to protect the market and consumers."

The New York Times 01/20/12

email this story | Posted 01/20/12@05:37AM

How Bad, Actually, Is Digital Piracy? (It's More Complicated Than You Think) There's no evidence that the United States is currently suffering from an excessive amount of online piracy, and there is ample reason to believe that a non-zero level of copyright infringement is socially beneficial. Online piracy is like fouling in basketball. You want to penalize it to prevent it from getting out of control, but any effort to actually eliminate it would be a cure much worse than the disease.

Slate 01/18/12

email this story | Posted 01/19/12@06:47AM

One-Day Strike - What Would Happen If The Culture Industry Took A Break? "What would happen if all the content-creation industries blocked access to all their products for a day to demonstrate what would happen if they couldn't make any money from their work owing to rogue sites. There'd be no music, no television, no film, no books, no radio. What would you miss the most - culture or Wikipedia?"

The Guardian (UK) 01/19/12

email this story | Posted 01/19/12@05:57AM

US Supreme Court Says Putting Work Back Into Copyright Is OK "Lawrence Golan had argued that taking works back out of the public domain would hinder creativity by making artists more cautious about remixing or otherwise using works, fearing their status could change in the future in a way that required payment to copyright holders. More broadly, academics have expressed concern that upholding the 1994 law would make it much more difficult to write books or assemble course readings without having to deal with a host of legal hurdles--or just prohibitively expensive fees--to avoid violating copyrights."

Chronicle of Higher Education 01/18/12

email this story | Posted 01/19/12@05:35AM

Concern Over Plans To Build Mega-Casino Near Miami's Arsht Center "A group formed to protect the $460 million Arsht Center for the Performing Arts and its surroundings in downtown Miami is raising new concerns about nearby traffic congestion from proposed casino resorts, and it could take a truckload of money to address it."

Miami Today 01/19/12

email this story | Posted 01/18/12@11:57PM

Birdsong - Another New Crimefighting Tool? Like many cities, large and small, Lancaster, California has seen a drop in crime rates in recent years. But Lancaster's mayor gives credit to the recorded chirps and twitters of birds that his city broadcasts through 70 speakers along half a mile of boulevard.

The Wall Street Journal 01/17/12

email this story | Posted 01/18/12@11:48PM

The Etiquette Of Abandoning Ship (Do Women And Children Really Go First?) With the Costa Concordia lying on its side off the Italian coast and its captain accused of abandoning his vessel and its passengers, one can't help but wonder what the actual rules for evacuation are. As it turns out, actual maritime law and (relatively recent) tradition don't entirely agree.

Slate 01/17/12

email this story | Posted 01/17/12@11:45PM

WIkipedia Will Shut Down Wednesday To Protest Internet Privacy Act Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales tweeted on Monday, "Student warning! Do your homework early. Wikipedia protesting bad law on Wednesday!" WIkipedia's far from the only website to go dark on Wednesday - but Hollywood says the tech companies are reacting stupidly. What's the deal?

Los Angeles Times 01/16/12

email this story | Posted 01/17/12@07:37AM

Toronto City Council Votes Not To Cut Arts Funding "After four months of fear and anxiety, on Thursday Toronto's arts community got some news from City Hall that calls for a victory celebration. The executive committee of city council voted in favour of sustaining arts funding levels at the same level that prevailed in 2011."

Toronto Star 01/13/12

email this story | Posted 01/16/12@11:59PM

Newspapers - Are They Civic Institutions Or Apps? "[The] typical argument calls for supporting newspapers historically have been based on the idea of newspapers as a sort of civic institution that we, as a society, must preserve in the name of ideals (always capitalized) like Truth. But what if, instead, we begin to think of newspapers in perhaps a more mundane manner - as algorithms for solving problems?" Which is to say, as apps.

The Big Think 01/16/12

email this story | Posted 01/16/12@11:51PM