“There’s more at stake here than Dan Brown’s royalties. If the judge in London rules that the set of ideas Leigh and Baigent espoused can be copyrighted, it would set a troubling precedent that could trip up authors and filmmakers who craft works around any new historic or scientific research. It’s worth noting that a federal judge in New York rejected a lawsuit against Brown last year by novelist Lewis Perdue, saying any similarity between their books was in ideas that could not be copyrighted.”
Tag: 03.14.06
NY City Ballet Names Nine New Soloists
New York City Ballet has promoted nine dancers to soloist. “The promotions, announced last week, suggest that this is a significant time of growth at the middle level of the company.”
Less Music, But At Least The Tickets Are Still Expensive
South Florida’s recent history with classical music is an unhappy one, bordering on the tragic – the (some would say unnecessary) shutdown of the Florida Philharmonic removed the anchor of the local scene, and several smaller groups that sprang up in the Phil’s wake have fared no better. So with the situation so precarious, why are some South Florida music organizations still charging $50 a ticket for a standard performance?
Sydney’s New “Ticket Hub”
A collection of Sydney-based performing arts organizations have spent AUS$2 million building a new “ticketing hub” which will allow groups using the Sydney Opera House to consolidate their sales departments, sell more tickets online and fix long-standing problems. “Previously, the various organisations were using different ticketing platforms and the ticket inventory was split, leaving the process prone to the double-selling of seats.”
SD Lawmakers Slash Public Broadcasting Budget
Earlier this month, the South Dakota legislature stripped $500,000 from South Dakota Public Broadcasting’s annual allocation as part of a last-minute round of cuts. Now, with the cut having been made public, lawmakers are passing the buck on whose fault it is. But what everyone seems to agree on is that there is little chance of the funding being restored this year.
Baldwin Testifies For Arts Funding
Alec Baldwin lobbied Congress for arts funding on National Arts Advocacy Day. “If you told me back in 1996, we would have a Republican president and Republicans in charge of both houses of Congress, and the NEA would be flourishing and would be safe, it wouldn’t be possible,”
A Grand Unifying Theory Of Everything
Seth Lloyd believes that “the universe is a gigantic quantum computer. When you zap things with light to build quantum computers, you’re hacking existing systems. You’re hijacking the computation that’s already happening in the universe, just like a hacker takes over someone else’s computer.”
Looking For An International Digital Movie Standard
Can the international film industry agree on technical standards for converting to digital? “There are about 35,000 screens in the U.S., while the international market has about 100,000 screens. … The transition to digital cinema is not only a U.S.-driven initiative, but more importantly, the international markets will make up the lion’s share of the world’s screens in order to achieve ultimate scale and global adoption of digital cinema.”
Corporate World Discovers Theatre
The corporate world has discovered acting school. Several acting schools around the world are dispensing tips from the typically more lively world of drama. “You have a unique way of seeing the world. In the business world, we try to help bring that to the workplace and have it be more than a job. It becomes a creative platform.”
The BBC’s New Goals
The UK government has outlined its plans for the BBC. “As well as the corporation’s traditional aims to ‘inform, educate and entertain’, the government has set it six new purposes: Sustaining citizenship and civil society; promoting education; stimulating creativity; reflecting the identity of the UK’s nations, regions and communities; bringing the world to the UK and the UK to the world; and building digital Britain.”