Author: Matthew Westphal

When Is A Piece Of Dance Protected By Copyright And When Not?

“While works of dance clearly are eligible for copyright protection under Section 102(a)(4) of the Copyright Act, determining which dances meet the standard — and which have two left feet — has been tricky and has resulted in a number of high-profile disputes in recent years. However, a recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling in an unrelated copyright dispute may provide important guidance in subsequent dance-related copyright litigation.” – IPWatchdog

Chopin’s Letters Show He Was Totally Gay, So Let’s Quit Pretending, Says Journalist

“Chopin’s Men, a two-hour radio programme that aired on Swiss public broadcaster SRF’s arts channel, argues that the composer’s letters have been at times deliberately mistranslated, rumours of affairs with women exaggerated, and hints at an apparent interest in ‘cottaging’ … simply ignored. The music journalist Moritz Weber, who started researching Chopin’s letters during the spring lockdown, said he discovered a ‘flood of declarations of love aimed at men’, sometimes direct in their erotic tone, sometimes full of playful allusions.” – The Guardian

Classical Grammy Nominations: Dudamel/LA Phil, Danielpour’s ‘Passion of Yeshua’, Met’s ‘Porgy and Bess’, Ted Hearne’s ‘Place’

Richard Danielpour’s oratorio, performed by the Buffalo Philharmonic under JoAnn Falletta. was nominated in three categories; the Metropolitan Opera’s recording of Gershwin’s opera received two nods, as did the Los Angeles Philharmonic’s release of the complete symphonies of Charles Ives, Thomas Adès’s Piano Concerto (with Kirill Gershtein and the Boston Symphony), and composer Ted Hearne’s staged oratorio Place. Both Adès and the San Francisco Symphony under Michael Tilson Thomas have two different recordings among the nominees. As usual in recent years, contemporary classical music has a major presence in categories beyond its own. – Los Angeles Times

Dave Chappelle Calls For Boycott Of His Old Sketch Show

Back when he was an up-and-coming 28-year-old with a child on the way, the comedian signed a contract with Comedy Central for what became Chappelle’s Show which allowed the cable channel’s parent company, ViacomCBS, to distribute reruns of the series in perpetuity with no additional payments to Chappelle. Now, having discovered that the show is being streamed by HBO Max and CBS All Access (and, via those services, on Netflix), he is telling his fans, “Boycott Chappelle’s Show. Do not watch it unless they pay me.” (Netflix, with whom Chappelle currently has a contract for specials, promptly took the series down.) – CBS News

Daniel Cordier, French Resistance Hero Who Became Prominent Art Dealer, Dead At 100

He and his mentor, Jean Moulin, spent part of World War II undercover as art dealers in occupied Nice, where they showed Matisse, Degas and Bonnard. After the war, Cordier took up art as his career, running a leading Paris gallery (with outposts in Frankfurt and New York) and giving Robert Rauschenberg his first major show in France. – Artnet

Cambridge Discovers That Two Of Charles Darwin’s Notebooks Have Been Missing For Up To 20 Years

“The notebooks were last seen in November 2000 after ‘an internal request’ to remove them from a special manuscripts storeroom to be photographed. They were taken to a temporary studio, … [and] it was only during ‘a routine check’ two months later that it was discovered they were missing.” Librarians at the time evidently assumed the notebooks had been misshelved; they’ve now concluded that the items were stolen. – BBC

Three Lessons Museum Leaders Learned From This Very Painful Year

“No museum has been able to escape the impact of the pandemic, from long periods of closure decimating revenues, to the continuous landslide of the exhibitions calendar. But in periods of crisis, there can also be opportunity. One idea that came up repeatedly throughout [the Louvre Abu Dhabi and NYU Abu Dhabi’s ‘Reframing Museums’ symposium ] was that many of these problems were identified years ago. But now, there is a real urgency to solve them. Here are three key takeaways for the industry from the discussions.” – Artnet

$1 Billion Overhaul For Melbourne’s Arts District

The newly announced government budget for the state of Victoria includes Aus$1.4 billion (US $1.03 billion) for the expansion and revamp of the Southbank arts district in Australia’s fast-growing second city. Phase One of the project will be the construction of the National Gallery of Victoria Contemporary (situated adjacent to the original NGV), planned to be the country’s largest contemporary art museum. Later phases will include improvements and additions to Arts Centre Melbourne, the main venue for all of the city’s major dance, classical music and opera organizations. – ArtsHub (Australia)