“New copyright legislation could be introduced in Canada within the next few weeks… The new legislation, which is likely to make it illegal to download or share songs on the internet without paying a fee, was promised in the Conservative government’s fall throne speech.”
Tag: 11.19.07
Can Amazon Rejuvenate The e-Book?
Amazon has rolled out a new $399 e-book that it hopes will do for the electronic book industry what the iPod did for downloadable music. The Kindle comes with wireless capability, weighs just over half a pound, and can store over 200 standard-length books.
Hirst Spends $33m On Bacon
“Damien Hirst may have lost his title as the most expensive living artist at auction to Jeff Koons in New York last week, but he can still claim to be not only the richest artist in the world but also the one who spends the most on art. Bidding anonymously by telephone last Wednesday, he splashed out $33 million at Sotheby’s on a 14in by 12in self-portrait by Francis Bacon.”
Me Me TV
“Many other shadowy sides of human behavior–formerly hidden from public view because they were regarded as either aberrant or just plain shameful–are now freely recorded and exposed for everyone to witness, often with considerable attention by the participants to mise en scène.”
Museum Of Modern Art In Peril For Excluding Women
“MoMA is our fountain of youth, our Garden of Eden, our Promised Land. But all these things will not last much longer if this institution continues excluding women from the display of its permanent collection of painting and sculpture from 1879 to 1969, which lives on the fourth and fifth floors.”
Charleston Symphony Musicians Get New Contract
“The agreement comes five months after reports emerged that the orchestra had for the first time in years finished its fiscal year, 2006-2007, with an operational surplus of more than $296,000. At the end of the previous year, according to federal tax documents, the CSO was in the red by more than $179,000.”
Bookseller Of Kabul Refutes Best-Selling Book
“The famed bookseller of Kabul — whose family life was chronicled by a Norwegian journalist — has published a scathing response to that best-selling book, accusing the author of creating lies about him and abusing his hospitality and friendship.”
A Nederlander Theatre Empire In Chicago
“Although there were significant early concerns about dark theaters and too many venues in the same hands, Broadway in Chicago has recently been a rip-roaring success.”
A Classic Modernist Battle
“Last year it looked as if the U.S. General Services Administration would tap Thomas Gordon Smith to be its chief architect. But modernists complained that picking Smith would send federal design back to the dark ages of imperial Rome after a flowering of adventurous buildings by the likes of Thom Mayne.”
Graeme Greene And A Child Star Scandal?
“Widely regarded as one of the finest British writers of the last century and a committed Catholic, Greene was sent to Mexico by the Vatican to document Government-led persecution – or so it was thought. Now, a sensational new theory has emerged – that Greene actually fled to Mexico to avoid being sent to prison over his infamous libel trial concerning the child star Shirley Temple.”