This Week’s Insights: Is ticket price a barrier to inclusiveness?… Authors threaten Internet Archive over lending digital books… How Netflix gets the world to pay attention… Does Netflix threaten the definition of what a movie is?
- Why Should Price Be A Factor In Whether You Attend Arts Events? That’s the thinking of Cleveland’s Museum of Contemporary Art, which has just made admission free so as to make itself more inclusive. Without a ticket price,anyone can attend. The move is part of the museum’s 50th anniversary “Open House” inclusivity initiative, which also includes “the creation of a diversity-focused curatorial fellowship, an engagement-guide apprenticeship program, enhanced onsite programming for families and teens, and the addition of an education specialist.”
- Authors Society Threatens to Sue Internet Archive Over Its Digital Lending Library: The Internet Archive began digitising books in 2005, because “not everyone has access to a public or academic library with a good collection, so to provide universal access we need to provide digital versions of books”. Today the archive scans 1,000 books a day in 28 locations around the world, through its book scanning and book drive programmes – with the “ultimate goal of [making] all the published works of humankind available to everyone in the world”. The UK authors group claims that making digital copies of their work available for free robs them of much-needed income.
- How Netflix Gins Up Audience For Its Shows: The company uses its social and brand editorial department as the engine that keeps Netflix shows and movies at the forefront of the pop-culture conversation. By imbuing its social platforms with the personality of a meme-happy fan who lives for TV and movies (rather than being stunt-driven, deadpan, or, worse, mocking the very audience it seeks), Netflix’s approach goes beyond mere promotion and jumps armpit-deep into participation and collaboration.
- Steven Spielberg Versus Netflix Over Audience: The director has been maintaining that Netflix isn’t a proper movie company because its films don’t (for the most part) play on the big screen. The recent Oscar nominations threaten the very notion of what a movie is, according to the industry. Had “Roma” won Best Picture, the definition of movies as a theatrical experience would be over. But “the debate about the future of moviegoing shouldn’t be a binary one between a studio system increasingly beholden to franchises and intellectual property, and a nihilistic streaming service set on eliminating all competitors and monopolizing its users’ attention. The real problem with film right now is a lack of diversity caused by a lack of competition — both in Hollywood and online.”
Leave a Reply