Independent music companies are complaining that the European commission’s decision to approve the merger of giant recording companies Sony Music and BMG has stifled competition.
Tag: 10.04.07
“World’s Best” Concert Hall Reopens After £35m Renovation
Never slow to blow its own trumpet, Birmingham now claims that it has both the best concert hall in the world (Symphony Hall) and the oldest (Birmingham Town Hall).
UK Police – More To Do Than Censor Art That Offends
“Even if complaints from religious groups are already leading to widespread self-censorship by individuals and organisations who prefer to avoid persecution, and thus help save police time, there will always be some inadvertently offensive work, or more deliberate piece of mischief requiring investigation, prior to the issue of a ban…”
American Poetry Orthodoxy Wars
“For 30 years an old orthodoxy ruled American poetry. It derived from the orthodoxy of TS Eliot and the new critics … it asked for a poetry of symmetry, intellect, irony, and wit. The last few years have broken the control of this orthodoxy. It’s hard to imagine this sentence being written today. It’s not that there isn’t any orthodoxy – rather that there are too many of them.”
Famous Last Words… Maybe…
Some famous last words seem too good to be true. “Can we really be sure that, as some collections report, Tasso, Charlemagne, Lady Jane Grey, Christopher Columbus and unspecified others all signed off with the sentiment: ‘Lord, into thy hands I commend my spirit’? Or that Beethoven’s very last words, not just words at the very end of his life but his ultimate ones, were ‘I shall hear in heaven’?”
Music Industry Wins Suit Against Music Fan
The RIAA sued a woman for illegally sharing copies of recordings. The judge levied $220,000 in damages against her. “The jury ordered Jammie Thomas, 30, to pay the six record companies that sued her $9,250 for each of 24 songs they focused on in the case. They had alleged she shared 1,702 songs in all.”
Lost: A Grand Palace Larger Than Versailles
How could a huge baroque palace more than half as big again as Versailles (80,000 as against 51,210 sq. m) simply get Âforgotten?
NY Dealer Sentenced For Fraud
“Manhattan dealer Edward Merrin has been sentenced in a case that charged him and his son Samuel Merrin with defrauding their clients William Ziff and his wife out of millions of dollars. The case against Samuel Merrin continues.”
America – Protecting Iraq’s Culture?
“In the era of chaos in Iraq, it has been all too easy for the world to airbrush out of mind the longstanding record of American custodial service to other people’s cultures. A salutary reminder of that tradition is being unveiled in a more modest way this week with a pack of playing cards featuring the monuments and antiquities of Iraq and Afghanistan, with exhortations to military personnel to safeguard them. The packs will be distributed to U.S. troops in the region throughout the autumn.”
MassMoCA Postlude: Where Are The Museum’s Rights?
“”What surprised me is this notion that museums as commissioning agents, as patrons of the arts, should simply be willing and ready and able to deal with the art diva, even if his demands arise from nowhere, because they are an expression of passion. It was all ‘the artist has rights’ and we at the museum have ‘responsibilities,’ and we heard very little about the artist’s responsibilities and our rights.”