Clamping Down On Free Speech How does the Digital Millennium Copyright Act threaten freedom of expression? "The DMCA gives corporations the power to essentially purge from the Internet what they deem to be copyright and trademark violations, usually by forcing Internet service providers to remove offending Web sites. The act encourages such behavior because the law states that ISPs and Web host companies can avoid liability only if they comply with copyright owners’ demands to quickly remove so-called infringing materials. Search engines are also liable under the law for simply pointing users to Web sites, though they too can avoid lawsuits if they cave to the demands of overzealous copyright owners by removing certain search results. Intellectual property owners can simply make your voice disappear if they do not like what you have to say about them—whether you are liberal, conservative or neither. This is something that was much more difficult in a non-digital world." In These Times 01/03
Posted: 03/04/2003 1:45 pm
Saatchi's Gift, Part II Iraqi-born art collector Charles Saatchi, whose devotion to promoting the work of young and emerging artists is well-established, is making a second major donation to the Arts Council Collection, based in London. Saatchi is giving over control of 34 modern sculptures to the ACC, which plans to display them in touring exhibitions around the U.K. and possibly abroad as well. Saatchi had previously made a gift of more than 100 artworks to the council in 1999. BBC 03/05/03
Posted: 03/05/2003 5:14 am
How These Things Start - Did Picasso Hate Matisse? Did Matisse Dislike Picasso? A competition is an odd aesthetic for an art show. So how did the Matisse–Picasso opposition come about? It "was invented almost a hundred years ago by a handful of avant-garde poets and painters who had an appetite for grand pronouncements. The rivalry was also fostered by Gertrude and Leo Stein, who, in their salon, liked to put other people's neuroses in a pot and let them simmer till they boiled over. Early on, Leo Stein made a point of telling Matisse and Picasso, then freshly aware of one another, that an important Parisian art dealer had spent the large sum of 2,000 francs on new paintings by Picasso and the very slightly larger sum of 2,200 francs on new paintings by Matisse. Then came a press release by the poet Apollinaire, and the duel was officially on..." Slate 03/04/03
Posted: 03/04/2003 12:58 pm
Disney Hall Almost Paid For The Frank Gehry-designed Disney Hall, which will play host to the Los Angeles Philharmonic beginning next fall, has come within $10 million of being fully paid for. The hall is estimated to cost $272 million, and has taken 15 years to go from initial planning stages to final construction. Backers say they are optimistic that the final fundraising push will go quickly, and the county has stepped in with an additional $14.5 million of street and neighborhood improvements around the hall. Los Angeles Times 03/05/03
Posted: 03/05/2003 6:22 am
Editors To Symphony: Don't Let It End Like This The Houston Chronicle editorial board has weighed in on the bitter dispute between the Houston Symphony Soiety and the orchestra's musicians. "The symphony management promises to present a five-year plan for artistic growth and financial stability in May, but the society demands that the musicians accept its final offer of reduced pay and benefits by Saturday. This precipitous ultimatum might reflect the symphony's dire financial state, but surely the final hour can wait until the society has a plan to climb out of its hole - a plan the musicians might be willing to accept and aid... Once that compromise is reached, it will fall to Houstonians to give the Houston Symphony the same generous and enthusiastic support they give to rodeos and ball games." Houston Chronicle 03/05/03
Posted: 03/05/2003 6:15 am
- Previously: Houston Symphony To Musicians: Take Pay Cut Or We'll make You Take It The Houston Symphony said Monday that "the organization is dealing with a 'flat-out crisis' in its finances and the 97 musicians need to accept an average 7.4 percent pay cut. The players have until Saturday to decide or risk having the society impose the cut, which it has authority to do under U.S. labor law. Musicians still would have the right to strike." Nando Times (AP) 03/03/03
Somewhere, Charles Dutoit Is Smiling It was nearly a year ago that the musicians of the Montreal Symphony Orchestra went to their union chief, Emile Subirana, and asked him to take action against music director Charles Dutoit, who was attempting to remove two tenured musicians from the ensemble. Subirana subsequently wrote an open letter which referred to Dutoit as a 'tyrant,' leading directly to the conductor's abrupt resignation from the orchestra he had led for nearly a quarter century. Months of public and private finger-pointing and bitter argument followed, and this week, the members of the Quebec Musicians Guild voted overwhelmingly to replace Subirana with a reformer who promised a more responsive and responsible union. Montreal Gazette 03/03/03
Posted: 03/05/2003 5:36 am
Setting An Example In San Antonio The mayor of San Antonio announced this week that he will donate $5000 from his office's discretionary fund to the struggling San Antonio Symphony, which missed payroll last Friday and is facing more than $500,000 of immediate debt. Mayor Ed Garza also exhorted other city leaders to match his contribution, and called on corporate leaders to broaden the base of support for the ensemble. The symphony's musicians have agreed to keep playing despite going without their paychecks, at least for the moment. San Antonio Express-News 03/04/03
Posted: 03/05/2003 5:28 am
- Previously: San Antonio - The Costs Of Losing A Symphony Orchestra What will it mean if the San Antonio Symphony goes out of business for lack of money? "A symphony orchestra is like the canary in the mine. If the bird stops singing, it's a good bet the air isn't safe for anybody to breathe. To be blunt, if the San Antonio Symphony goes silent, you'd be well advised to update your résumé. Appropriately valuing the symphony means rejecting the big lie — that's what it is — that San Antonio is too poor and lowbrow to afford a luxury like a symphony orchestra. The issue isn't money. The issue is values." San Antonio Express-News 03/02/03
Forget the Women And Children! Board Members First! The entire board of the financially shaky Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra has resigned after learning that its members could be on the hook for more than a million dollars if the organization were to file for bankruptcy. The resignations occurred after the WSO was informed that its liability coverage was being cut back from $2 million to $1 million. The orchestra is operating under a CDN$1.8 million deficit. For now, the WSO is being run by a 6-member management committee, and the provincial culture ministry is promising to help the organization make payroll in the short term. CBC 03/04/03
Posted: 03/05/2003 5:20 am
- Pushing Ahead Members of the Winnipeg Symphony management team, as well as leaders among the musicians, are moving to assure the public and the press that the mass resignation of the orchestra's board does not mean that the organization is near filing for bankruptcy. But while the ensemble does not appear to be in imminent danger of collapse, "since the extent of its financial troubles became known late last fall, the WSO has lost three of its four professional fundraisers and three chief executive officers." The Globe & Mail (Canada) 03/05/03
Posted: 03/05/2003 5:19 am
SF Opera Cuts Touring Program San Francisco Opera, looking to cut its budget, has canceled its annual touring program - Western Opera Theatre. "When I looked at my budget, the most obvious thing to cut was (Opera Theater), because it's a horrifically expensive thing that we always have lost money on." The program was designed "to bring opera to remote and underserved locations," but director Sheri Greenawald said the program had become "a dinosaur. In many ways, (Opera Theater) was no longer serving its initial mission, which was to take opera into the hinterlands - because as far as opera is concerned, there are very few hinterlands left." San Francisco Chronicle 03/04/03
Posted: 03/04/2003 2:40 pm
Will The Big Five Recording Companies Become The Big Three? The recording industry is talking merger again. In this shrinking market, the savings that might be squeezed from a merger offer a lifeline. In the past, European regulators have been an obstacle, repeatedly blocking mergers among the big five record companies—Vivendi's Universal Music, Sony Music, EMI, AOL Time Warner's Warner Music, and Bertelsmann's BMG—which between them control 70% of the global recorded-music market. In 2000, they blocked a merger of Warner and EMI by imposing heavy divestment conditions. They stopped EMI marrying BMG even before a formal proposal was tabled." But with the industry's current woes, the merger proposition might get a more sympathetic hearing. The Economist 03/03/03
Posted: 03/04/2003 1:10 pm
In NJ: Arts Funding As Your Own Personal Slush Fund How did New Jersey (whose governor is proposing to cut state arts funding completely) distribute a $3 million supplemental fund for the arts this year? The state's Secretary of State - with "bare-bones application forms and no written evaluation process" - unilaterally decided how it would be spent. Regena Thomas "conceded the applications were not measured against one another or ranked in any formal way. Rather, the winners - 33 out of 195 applicants - were chosen based on input from legislators and her own personal interests. All but $217,000 of the $3 million announced in January went to organizations located in Democratic districts." A month after the grants were awards, Governor McGreevey "called for the elimination of all cultural funding and the dismantling of the agencies that distribute that money." Newark Star-Ledger 03/03/03
Posted: 03/04/2003 2:14 pm
Bay Area Arts Groups Downsizing Bay Area arts groups are scaling back and cutting budgets and programs as they struggle to balance their budgets. "Call it the year of 'rightsizing' for arts groups, as many realize funding won't rebound any time soon and they must scale back operating expenses in order to survive. "We're pulling in tight. It's as dark a chapter in the contemporary arts as I've lived in." San Francisco Business Journal 03/03/03
Posted: 03/04/2003 2:07 pm
The Woman Behind KaZaa Nikki Hemming is the 36-year-old chief executive officer of Sharman Networks, Kazaa’s parent company. It is based on Sydney’s north shore with a staff of 18. Sharman is being sued by Hollywood and the American music industry for alleged breach of copyright over pirated music and movies. But Kazaa is fighting back, counter-suing household names such as EMI, Sony, Warner and Disney for alleged collusion and anti-competitive conduct." Hemming says she'll win, and that she still buys CDs and goes to the theatre for movies.... The Age (Melbourne) 03/05/03
Posted: 03/04/2003 5:58 pm
Broadway Compromise Near Broadway producers and musicians are said to be close to an agreement on a new contract, with the contentious issue of 'minimums' more or less left to be battled out at every individual production site. "The minimum number of musicians required in the larger theaters... will be reduced from 26 to 18, and more flexibility will be built into the so-called 'special situations' clause, which allows producers to petition the union for fewer musicians on a show-by-show basis. Minimums will be preserved, but in theory only; for all practical purposes, every show will negotiate its own minimum." New York Post 03/05/03
Posted: 03/05/2003 6:30 am
Kennedy Center To Do Williams Following up on its critically received Sondheim retrospective last summer, The Kennedy Center plans to present a 10-week celebration of the plays of Tennessee Williams this summer. Included will be new productions of his major plays including "A Streetcar Named Desire," "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof" and "The Glass Menagerie." Last summer's Sondheim fest drew audiences from around the US. The New York Times 03/05/03
Posted: 03/04/2003 10:25 pm
Cleaning Up Stratford The town of Stratford needs to clean itself up, pull itself together, and start acting like the major attraction it is. The Royal Shakespeare will announce a new plan for its theatre in the town - one can only hope for the best - but the whole operation needs a thorough refurbishment if it's going to survive. Otherwise... The Telegraph (UK) 03/05/03
Posted: 03/04/2003 6:05 pm
Lysistrata In LA On Monday, peace activists read Aristophanes anti-war play "Lysistrata" at locations all over the world. In Los Angeles "about 250 people gathered at L.A. Filmmakers Co-Op to watch AlfreWoodard play the title role, supported by Julie Christie, Christine Lahti, Mary McDonnnell, Eric Stoltz, Roscoe Lee Browne and other celebrities. The scene was reminiscent of a movie opening or an exclusive club. Only about 100 could cram into the small brick building, while the rest of the crowd watched a televised simulcast on the adjacent patio." Los Angeles Times 03/04/03
Posted: 03/04/2003 1:57 pm
- 10,000 Offers To Read Organizers report they had about 10,000 e-mail messages from people wanting to take part in readings around the world. In New York City alone, there were 60 performances planned." The New York Times 03/04/03
Posted: 03/04/2003 1:55 pm
- And In The Bay Area... "The largest, showiest and probably most somber of the readings here took place at the Berkeley Repertory Theatre. Two sold-out houses of 587 filled the Roda Theatre for a performance presented by Upon These Boards, for which the producer and adapter, Randall Stuart, had assembled a cast of 100 noted Bay area actors, musicians and singers.
The show was both aptly silly and stately."
Posted: 03/04/2003 1:55 pm
- And All Over... The readings took place all over the world. "The latest count was heading beyond 919 readings in 56 countries, including Venezuela, China, India and Honduras." BBC 03/04/03
Posted: 03/04/2003 1:48 pm
Norman Mailer On "Finding" The Book You're Trying To Write Planning out a plot isn't always a good thing. "I look to find my book as I go along. Plot comes last. I want a conception of my characters that's deep enough so that they will get me to places where I, as the author, have to live by my wits. That means my characters must keep developing. So long as they stay alive, the plot will take care of itself. Working on a book where the plot is already fully developed is like spending the rest of your life filling holes in rotten teeth when you have no skill as a dentist." The Telegraph (UK) 03/05/03
Posted: 03/04/2003 6:11 pm
Children's Books, Madonna Style Joe Queenan's excited at the prospect of Madonna writing children's books. "The English Roses will be based on the adventures of a red fox and a young prince. Presumably, at least one will be androgynous; though probably not the fox, as the species already has enough image problems. It sounds quite fascinating. But better still are the brief outlines industry sources have leaked of the other four books in the series..." One working title: "Ricco Has Six Mothers and at Least as Many Fathers" OpinionJournal.com 03/05/03
Posted: 03/04/2003 4:49 pm
Wanna Make A Movie? Better Start Saving... "The price of making a movie soared dramatically last year, with the average major studio production costing nearly $59 million, a 23% increase from 2001, the Motion Picture Assn. of America announced Tuesday. It was the biggest percentage increase since 1997 and a little more than double the $29 million of 10 years ago." Los Angeles Times 03/05/03
Posted: 03/05/2003 6:21 am
Cinefranco Rejects Ultraviolent Films Toronto's "Cinefranco" festival of French-language films gets underway this month, but the lineup will not include Gaspar Noe's celebrated Irreversible, which is part of a new wave of 'shock-violence' films. Cinefranco "has also refused to screen several other French art-house films using extremes of violence in recent years. These new films, which blend sophisticated scripts with protracted and gratuitous use of violence, are the object of great controversy among critics." The Globe & Mail (Canada) 03/05/03
Posted: 03/05/2003 6:08 am
SF Ballet Cuts Dancers To Save Money San Francisco Ballet has cut four dancers from its roster, including two principals. "Friday's dismissals will leave the ballet with 69 dancers under contract next season, which begins in February 2004. That will save the company about $350,000, said Ballet Executive Director Glenn McCoy. The administrative staff also has been reduced, by 12 percent, and salaries have been frozen." San Francisco Chronicle 03/04/03
Posted: 03/04/2003 2:51 pm
