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A Sport That Emerged From The Harry Potter Books Changes Its Name And Cuts Ties To Rowling

Sure, the players might ride truncated broomsticks, and some of the images will look familiar, but the game played in 40 countries with 600 teams is now called quadball. The impetus was the Harry Potter author's anti-trans stances, but the move will also help with trademark issues.  - NPR

Why Isn’t Novelist Geling Yan Getting A Credit For This Movie?

She should be - but she's spoken out against the Chinese government. Still, Western film companies could do something. "Yan’s campaign, and the muted response, highlights how an apparent censorship decision in China can quietly ripple through the art-house film world." - The New York Times

We Love To Connect, But Our Connections Make The Roads Dangerous

Knowledge (including arts administration) workers might improve the world when they work from home. Why? Knowledge workers say they use their phones to make calls, plan events, and read - and reply to - emails ... while driving. - Fast Company

San Diego Arts Orgs Assess Their Deep Pandemic Pain

The pandemic "significantly damaged San Diego’s arts and culture organizations last year, costing them more than $77 million in revenue and donations, shrinking their economic impact by 47 percent and prompting nearly 700 layoffs and lost freelance contracts." And that's better than 2020. - San Diego Union-Tribune

The Supreme Court’s Dreadful Dobbs Decision May Accidentally Spur Data Privacy Advances

"'The circle of people who have to act like they’re in a spy movie is getting bigger and bigger,' says Cindy Cohn, executive director of the Electronic Frontier Foundation." And state or national governments may decide to act. - Wired

US Copyright Office Declines To Target Web Aggregators

The U.S. Copyright office, contrary to the approach taken in Europe, has declined to add an ancillary copyright for publishers to protect them from use of their content by aggregators. - MediaPost

Record Number Of New Cultural Buildings In 2021

211 large-scale cultural infrastructure projects were completed in 2021 - $11.2 billion – the highest annual volume and value of completed projects since 2016 (and by some margin). Last year only 104 projects were completed with a value of $5.7 billion. - AEA

The African Artist Collective Turning Colonialism On Its Head

Plantation workers there earn twenty or thirty dollars a month; as artists, they make much more. The collective has brought in more than a hundred thousand dollars since its creation, and it has had shows in cities including Berlin, Warsaw, Amsterdam, Tokyo, New York, Copenhagen, and Jeddah. - The New Yorker

How Corporations Became Art Patrons

After 1945 a new form of artistic patronage arose, reflecting the rise of that icon of midcentury capitalism, the American corporation, and creating a new genre: what Alex J. Taylor calls “corporate modernism.” - The Wall Street Journal

Ethics And What Art Gets Shown

The Wollongong Art Gallery needed to make some big calls after it was discovered that one of its prominent donors, who passed away 30 years ago, was last month confirmed as a Nazi intelligence officer during the Second World War. - Big Idea

“What If Arts Funding Was Honest And We Finally Admitted That It’s All Just A Gamble?”

"That beauty is subjective and all of our interests are conflicted.  What if we replaced this arbitrary system that we pretend is rational, with a true lottery? One that embraces the chaos of distributing a small pool of resources to a vast ocean of creativity." - The Big Idea (New Zealand)

The Cure For Free Speech On Campus

Some of the most easily offended university students in America have become adept at characterizing any speech they dislike as if it creates an unsafe, discriminatory, or hostile climate, or else constitutes harassment or even violence. - The Atlantic

In Praise Of Hotel Culture

Hotels—grand ones, modest ones, inns, motels, and single-room occupancies—once filled a crucial niche in the American housing ecosystem. And now they should again. - Slate

Are NFTs The Killer App for Tickets? The NFL Experiments

This coming season, each ticket will be an NFT, which means that ticket holders will be able to buy, sell, and trade their tickets (NFTs) on the Ticketmaster marketplace. -Shelly Palmer

How Relentless Right-Wing Attacks Shut Down An Entire Library

Vinton, Iowa's library shuttered as the staff resigned after a barrage of attacks. The complaints: "That we were not being fair to President Trump because we didn't have books that were equal. ... And that in the marching book, there was a lack of marches such as pro-life." - NPR

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