- Do copyright laws help or hinder culture? Playwright Charles Mee addresses the question repeatedly in his work – all of his plays include text appropriated from another source, and all of them are available for free over the web. “The greatest plays in human history – those by the ancient Greeks and Shakespeare – would never have been written had copyright laws existed to keep the authors from borrowing from the culture around them.” – NPR 08/21/00 [Real audio file]
Tag: 08.21.00
APRIL FOOLING
Hollywood fully expects to be hit with writers’ and actors’ strikes next summer – and predictions are they’ll be long strikes. So production is in full bore now to complete projects before work stops. April 1 is the deadline they’re racing to make. “It’s not a question of if there are going to be strikes. It’s a question of what are you going to do about it.” – Variety
ARTISTS VS DEVELOPERS
A Boston artists’ district has become a popular target for developers, who want to significantly remake the area. Now a coalition of artists is “aggressively attempting to buy warehouse buildings from local developers in the hopes of salvaging the artists’ presence in the bustling arts district.” – Boston Herald 08/21/00
AN EDIFYING EDINBURGH?
As usual, a fair bit of controversy at this year’s Edinburgh Festival. “Founded in 1948 to foster cultural links after the second world war, the international festival has since been surrounded by a clutch of peripheral events, of which the most prominent and controversial is the fringe festival. So how does the international festival now distinguish itself?” And is it doing a good job? The answer, according to some experts is a resounding no. – The Guardian 08/21/00
JUDGING WORK
“Readers and writers of the past – not just the geniuses, either; the intelligent, alert ones who kept current as we all like to think we do – remind us how culture and taste change. And why. What aesthetic, social and intellectual needs do beliefs serve in their time? Which ones serve us now, and why?” – New York Times 08/21/00
BRUSTEIN REVIEWS ALEXANDER
“Jane Alexander probably could have been less of a diplomat with legislators, and more of an advocate for the avant-garde and the high arts. With hindsight, she had nothing to lose by a more forthright stand since, for all of her charm, graciousness, and tact, she failed to save the agency from become a limping animal, disabled by the Congressional axe. But Command Performance is possibly more interesting as a personal bildungsroman than as a history of a crippled government agency – a tale of what befalls a liberal American idealist at the close of the twentieth century.” – The New Republic