This Week’s Highlights:

The middle of the arts economy has spent a decade being described as collapsing. This week it looked more like it was reorganizing. Performing arts centers across Australia’s “second cities” formed a network to develop major works none of them could mount alone (Limelight). Two of Dallas’s largest performing arts institutions announced a merger (KERA). A year after federal defunding, public radio stations are working out how to convert the emergency giving surge into something durable (Current). None of these are recoveries. They’re redesigns — institutions deciding that scale is something you assemble rather than something you own.

The AI fight, meanwhile, changed shape. The musicians’ union amended its suit to target Universal and Warner over their deals with Suno and Udio (Music Business Worldwide) — the artists suing their own industry. Also this week, the major music companies asked that AI songs be disqualified from the charts (The Hollywood Reporter). Rights-holders now sit on both sides of the table: selling the training data and demanding the output wear a label.

And a sad story: the Kennedy Center suspended public tours three days after the Times profiled the 84-year-old volunteer guide leading them through an empty building (The New York Times). Grrr.

All this week’s stories below, organized by topic.