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Australia’s Leading Dictionary Declares “Enshittification” 2024’s Word Of The Year

Macquarie Dictionary defines the word as "the gradual deterioration of a service or product brought about by a reduction in the quality of service provided, especially of an online platform, and as a consequence of profit-seeking." - The Guardian

Dictionary.com’s 2024 Word of The Year Is “Demure” (?)

The word saw an enormous spike in searches on the site in August, thanks to a TikTok video by a creator named Jools Lebron that went viral. - Smithsonian Magazine

Marjorie Taylor Greene Wants To Go After NPR, And She Might Just Get The Power To Do It

The Georgia Congresswoman has been tapped by Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy to lead a new House subcommittee working with the pair's not-yet-created Department of Government Efficiency. She said, "We'll be looking at everything from government-funded media programs like NPR that spread nothing but Democrat propaganda." - Salon

Janet Suzman On Returning Home To Direct “Otello” In Apartheid South Africa

"It was 1987, three years before Nelson Mandela walked free. ... We saw apartheid lasting till the crack of doom. It seemed impregnable. The law had once banned 'miscegenation'. And here I was directing Othello, a play about miscegenation, at Johannesburg’s Market Theatre." - The Guardian

Breyten Breytenbach, Author And Activist Against Apartheid, Is Dead At 85

"(He) was a celebrated wordsmith, a leading voice in literature in Afrikaans — an offshoot of Dutch that was developed by white settlers (in South Africa) — and a fierce critic of apartheid that was imposed against the country’s Black majority between 1948 and 1990." - AP

Former Shen Yun Dancer Sues Company, Alleging Abuse Of Young Performers

"The lawsuit brought by Chang Chun-Ko in White Plains federal court sought unspecified damages on behalf of Chang and other alleged victims of Shen Yun, … saying it has subjected some children who perform for it to harsh conditions, including long hours for little pay." - AP

Cincinnati Symphony CEO Announces Retirement

"After leading the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra for seven years, CSO President and CEO Jonathan Martin has announced that he will retire on Feb. 16. He will be replaced by Chief Operating Officer Robert McGrath as the acting president and CEO." - The Cincinnati Enquirer (Yahoo!)

Comcast Unloading Its Cable Channels Signals A Major Shift In The TV Business

“This is a very clear, direct statement by Comcast” that “they are exiting the cable network business. This is them saying ‘We don’t want to be in this business. This is no longer a growth business.’ - CNN

Spotify Says Music Created With AI Is Welcome

“We’re a tool for creators, and if creators want to use AI to enhance their music, as long as we follow the legislation and copyright laws, we want them to be able to monetise their music and pay out.” - MusicTech

How The Internet Archive’s Fair Use Argument Lost At The Court

Copyright law is a jagged rock on which many seemingly promising ideas have been wrecked. In this particular case, the perilous legal provision turned out to be Section 107 of the Copyright Act, which governs “the fair use of a copyrighted work.” - FreeThink

Tracing The Lives Of The 20th Century American Novel

Taking Alex Ross’ 2007 book “The Rest Is Noise: Listening to the Twentieth Century” as a model, Frank’s book makes the case for what, exactly, a 20th century novel is, what its authors’ methods and goals were, and how the unprecedented events of an ever more interconnected world shaped it. - Los Angeles Times

The Circus That Bought An Old West Town In The Desert

Spiegelworld, an entertainment and circus company based in Las Vegas, bought the entire town in 2022 for $2.5m. This isolated plot of land, roughly an hour’s drive from Vegas and the same distance from the nearest grocery store, is now known as Spiegelworld’s “global headquarters” or, more simply, the “circus town”. - The Guardian

Study: UK Artists Earn Average Of £12,500 Per Year

Visual artists in the UK take home a median annual salary of only £12,500 a year, a 40% decrease since 2010, a new survey commissioned by the Design & Artists Copyright Society (DACS) has found. - The Art Newspaper

Outside Some High-Profile Sales (Banana Anyone?) Art Auction Market Is Down 40 Percent This Season

The auction market "continues to sag behind its 2022 sales records, when a pent-up supply of masterpieces during the pandemic pushed the fall sales to $3.2 billion." - The New York Times

New Book Publisher Says It Will Publish 8000 Books Next Year Using AI

Spines, founded in 2021 but which published its first titles this year, is a startup technology business which—for a fee—is offering the use of AI to proofread, produce, publish and distribute books. - The Bookseller

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