Tag: 10.08.03

Detroit’s Culture Czar

As Detroit continues a concerted effort to remake its image and turn its fortunes, the arts and culture have been playing a big role. But according to Karen Dumas, the city’s newly appointed Director of Cultural Affairs, what’s still missing is a sense of cohesion among Detroit’s arts groups. A marketing specialist, Dumas says that her goal will be to find ways to connect the area’s larger arts organizations, such as the Detroit Symphony Orchestra, with smaller, more flexible groups, in an effort to craft a cohesive arts strategy for a city on the mend.

The Grandfather Of Art Critics

Dave Hickey is an unusual icon in the art world, a critic who flatly refuses to embrace either academic jargon, or what he calls the “Art Brit-tabloid sleaze” now in vogue as a way to supposedly reach young people. According to Hickey, art’s problems are just society’s problems writ small. “Art’s just not that important or that fashionable anymore. It’s not cool. Not only that, it’s not intellectually serious… What do you do with an art world in which the normative work of art is a giant C-print of three Germans standing beside a mailbox? What’s that? Stop it, please.”

Blogging Your Way To Stardom

The phenomenon known as “blogging” is creating a new breed of writer, and a new way for magazines and publishing houses to identify their future stars. “Back in the Dark Ages, starting out in journalism used to mean late nights covering school board meetings or writing features about the circus coming to town.” But many young writers are bypassing this early part of the typical journalistic career trajectory by getting themselves noticed with cheap and popular online repositories of their work.

The Rich Get Richer

Last year, media giant Vivendi Universal nearly collapsed under the weight of its own acquisitions, and came dangerously close to bankruptcy. Now, Vivendi is selling its entertainment arm to NBC, a move which will make the U.S. network one of the premier power players in an increasingly consolidated industry.

Big Media vs. Big Media

The Recording Industry Association of America is demanding that major internet service providers release a list of their customers to the RIAA, to aid in the industry’s prosecution of individuals engaged in illegal online file-sharing. But many of the ISPs, perhaps sensing something to be gained in taking “the people’s side” in the increasingly divisive debate over file-swapping, are refusing to release the lists and challenging the RIAA in court. The latest to sue is Charter Communications, citing its customers’ right to privacy as taking precedent over the requirements laid out in the infamous Digital Millenium Copyright Act.

Embracing the Future

“As the major record companies scramble to put a lid on peer-to-peer file-sharing networks like Morpheus and Kazaa, an upstart California record label is trying to revolutionize the industry by taking the opposite approach: making file sharing the heart of its business. Berkeley-based Magnatune calls its approach ‘open music,’ a blend of shareware, open source and grass-roots activism. The idea is to let users try music before they buy, and when they do, to give half of every sale to the artist. Magnatune’s motto: ‘We are not evil.'”

And How Much Did This Wonder Of Technology Cost?

The much-ballyhooed MediaMax CD3, a copy-protected disc which was designed to prevent its contents from being ‘ripped’ to computers and converted into digital music files, apparently needs fewer loopholes. The discs operate by launching a driver onto any computer into which they are inserted, and the driver blocks the ability to copy the disc. But the driver doesn’t work on Mac or Linux machines, and a college student is already publicizing his discovery that the driver can be bypassed on Windows machines, simply by pressing the key.

New York Merger Fatality

The failure of the Carnegie Hall/New York Philharmonic is a public embarrassment, writes Greg Sandow. “If you ask me, Carnegie Hall and the Philharmonic both look dumb. One issue, as anybody could have guessed beforehand, was how to accomodate all the concerts the Philharmonic gives each year with Carnegie’s strong and diverse schedule. How could it take all these months to figure that out? And how could the two organizations have announced plans to merge – actually announce that the meger was a done deal, with everything set except for the details – without settling such an obvious issue before the announcement was made? I can barely believe it.”