In a motion filed early Wednesday in federal court in Oakland, the WGA‘s legal team argued that the transaction “is presumptively illegal in the market for writing services for anticipated top grossing films,” noting that the combined companies would have a 35% share of that market. - Deadline
The Anthropic payout will deliver $3,000 per work across an estimated 500,000 works, shared among the authors and publishers who hold rights to them. While the settlement is believed to be the largest in the history of U.S. copyright law, many authors and creators still don’t view it as a win. - TechCrunch
The book is flattering, fabricated and absolutely packed with em dashes. It bears all the signs of A.I. slop. I clicked on the author, one John Crane Miller. His bio page described him as a “seasoned biographer and cultural analyst,” and his portrait was a widely used stock photo. - The New York Times
In a House Subcommittee on Delivering Government Efficiency hearing titled "Rewriting American History: Examining the Smithsonian's Efforts to Reshape the Past," National Museum of American History director Anthea Hartig faced such questions as “When did you know you were a woman?” and “Was Mickey Mouse racist?” - ARTnews
Exactly who or what is to blame for the closures is hard to diagnose. Producers have cited astronomical transportation costs as a major factor, perhaps unwilling to blame audiences’ increasing reluctance to pre-book. Industry-wide fixes are even trickier to identify. - The Guardian
By focusing narrowly on the theatrical release market, the AGs and judge are like Norma Desmond clinging to a bygone era. The same is true of the deal’s union opponents in Hollywood who worry the merger could result in fewer of their films premiering on the big screen. - The Wall Street Journal
During his tenure as director (1986-2009), Cal Performances developed longstanding partnerships with myriad performers and organizations, from Merce Cunningham to Mark Morris Dance Group, from Laurie Anderson to Robert Wilson to Robert Lepage, from Les Arts Florissants to Jordi Savall to Philip Glass to the Kronos Quartet. - San Francisco Chronicle (MSN)
The school board of Clay County (mostly suburbs of Jacksonville) has ordered an unusually large selection, even by Florida standards, of titles off its public school bookshelves. Now some of its members are debating “what would be a high-level function for that space” instead. (One official suggested school stores.) - WUSF (Tampa)
“The most important thing about Marlboro, musicians say, is that it removes the pressure of performance. Ensembles are free to rehearse and study as long as they wish. … The outsize focus on study and exploration raises the question of whether Marlboro is, at heart, a festival or a school.” - The New York Times
The company, based in Glasgow, will cut short its December run of Cinders in Edinburgh, canceling Christmas-to-New-Year’s-week shows, because — especially with an upcoming 5% addition to the hotel tax — the cost of accommodation for up to 150 performers and crew is simply too high. - STV News (Scotland)
“A federal judge has approved a $1.5 billion copyright settlement in which artificial intelligence company Anthropic will pay thousands of authors about $3,000 per book after using pirated copies of their works to train its Claude chatbot.” - AP
— Jessica Morgan, currently director of New York’s Dia Art Foundation. “Morgan will need to guide the organisation through a difficult financial landscape, raise poor staff morale and grapple with fluctuating visitor numbers.” - The Guardian
“Conductor and composer Julian Wachner has agreed to plead guilty to five counts of possession of child sex abuse material and to one count of possession of cocaine after he admitted to using cryptocurrency hundreds of times to buy (such imagery). … Wachner could be facing 10 years in prison.” - OperaWire
Beginning and End, a 452-square-foot mural painted by Julio Escámez, was unveiled in 1972 by the Allende-aligned government of the city of Chillán, 250 miles south of Santiago. After Pinochet’s coup, he ordered the mural destroyed, and it was thought lost; in 2021, conservators discovered that it had been only painted over. - Artnet
