“It’s been less than two weeks since Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC) released his proposal to increase the penalties for those who would dare stream unlicensed works. … It’s had very little time to circulate before evidently becoming part of the spending package. If passed, illegal streaming of works including movies and music tracks could carry a penalty of up to 10 years in jail. That’s not the only change to copyright law, either.” – The Hollywood Reporter
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Scammers Are Conning Famous Authors Into Sending Them Unpublished Manuscripts
Margaret Atwood, Ian McEwan, Ethan Hawke, Jo Nesbø and James Hannaham are a few “of countless targets in a mysterious international phishing scam that has been tricking writers, editors, agents and anyone in their orbit into sharing unpublished book manuscripts. It isn’t clear who the thief or thieves are, or even how they might profit from the scheme. … In fact, the manuscripts do not appear to wind up on the black market at all, or anywhere on the dark web, and no ransoms have been demanded. When copies of the manuscripts get out, they just seem to vanish.” – The New York Times
Plans For Smithsonian Museums Of Women’s And Latinx History Saved By COVID Relief Bill
Hopes for the two long-discussed projects appeared crushed earlier this month when Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT) blocked the legislation that would have authorized them. But other lawmakers managed to get that bill attached to the omnibus spending and relief measure passed late Monday night. – The Washington Post
Pandemic Relief Legislation Will Aid Indie Movie Theaters But (Probably) Not Big Chains
“The grants will provide much-needed relief to these venues, many of which have seen their business all but vanish as the pandemic canceled concerts and stage plays, while pushing almost all new theatrical releases to 2021. These particular grants, however, appear to disqualify the three largest players in the domestic movie theater business: AMC, Cinemark and Regal Cinemas owner Cineworld.” – The Hollywood Reporter
French Police Seize Hoard Of 27,000 Ancient And Medieval Artifacts, Probably Looted
Authorities seized the trove, which includes coins and jewelry from ancient Rome, bracelets and similar items from the Bronze and Iron Ages, and metal objects from the European Middle Ages, from a Frenchman in Belgium who claims he had found the objects in his apple orchard. Customs officials in both countries say they were probably smuggled from France. – Artnet
Out Of This Year’s Wreckage: A New Model For Theatre?
Charles McNulty: “Even before the pandemic, the theater’s economic model was broken. Our resident theaters, the nonprofit companies that constitute the art form’s national foundation, arose in a cultural landscape drastically different from today’s.” – Los Angeles Times
23 Of This Year’s Best Books On Dance
Wendy Perron makes a list and some recommendations: It’s been a good year for dance history. Most of these books explore the past, deepening and broadening what we know and how we know it. – Wendy Perron
This 1953 Column By Walt Disney Talked About Threats To The Movie Industry
As Disney concluded in his column, “We like to enjoy ourselves in crowds, at sports arenas, at picnics, fairs and carnivals, at concerts and in the theatre. … People are always going to demand and enjoy movies in the theatre. Perhaps not as exclusively as they did when public amusements were more limited. But with a big potential share” of people’s entertainment budgets, “we must compete as never before.” – Variety
2020 – The Year Macro-Culture Paused And Micro-Culture Took Over
“When space shrinks and time expands, we suddenly find ourselves traveling inward—binge-watching ’80s sci-fi, creating new online personas, studying Buddhism, covering our bedroom ceilings in cotton and LED strips so it looks like a thundering night sky and/or reflects our storm-tossed souls. Anything to rediscover ourselves. Macroculture may have been voided by 2020, but microcultures boomed. At the very least, everyone’s just a bit more interested in something as a result, and thus more interesting, as people.” – Wired
Sorry – This Crossed The Line, Say Judges In Star Trek/Dr. Seuss Parody Copyright Case
“The ruling by a three-judge panel from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit concerned a Kickstarter-backed book, created by ComicMix, that inserted “Star Trek” characters into the whimsical pastel world that Dr. Seuss created for the 1990 children’s classic “Oh, the Places You’ll Go!” The ComicMix book, a primer on “Star Trek” characters and lore, replicated broad swaths of the Dr. Seuss original, down to imitating small details of the illustrations, the judges said.” – The New York Times