Liberty Mutual and Great American are refuting the claim submitted by the owners of the 25 paintings which were on display at the Orlando Museum of Art in 2022 until the FBI seized them and they were revealed to be forgeries. - Artnet
"Penguin Random House parent company Bertelsmann has agreed to a 'strategic collaboration' with OpenAI to use ChatGPT technology across many of its operating units. ... The agreement not only includes employees' use of ChatGPT, but the 'development of new products and services' as well." - Publishers Weekly
"Struggling with declining revenue in its groundbreaking nonprofit radio/newspaper model, Chicago Public Media is offering voluntary buyouts for Chicago Sun-Times journalists and business employees at WBEZ. The WBEZ newsroom will not be affected by the buyout announcement Wednesday, but more cuts could be on the way." - Chicago Tribune (MSN)
A full house for the National Ballet of Ukraine these days is 560 people, because that's the capacity of the bomb shelter in the theater's basement. Here's a photo journal of the Christmas production at a company where, as one ballerina puts it, every show could be the last. - The Times (UK)
Upgrading the look of B&N stores, and improving the quality of its workforce, are among the reasons James Daunt cited as contributing to the bookseller’s resurgence: “We want to have good teams inside nice-looking stores.” - Publishers Weekly
Aphasia brings up existential questions that get at the heart of human connection: Who are we without language? If I were struck by aphasia today, what would be left unsaid, to my family, my friends, my readers? - Public Books
In a leaked memo to French culture minister Rachida Dati, Louvre director Laurence des Cars wrote that overcrowding at the museum is causing "physical strain" on the building and that some areas "are no longer watertight, while others experience significant temperature variations, endangering the preservation of artworks," - AFP (Yahoo!)
A 32-year-old Greek man discovered the artifact in a black bag in the college town of Thessaloniki and turned it in to police on Saturday evening, Greek authorities said in a statement Wednesday. - Washington Post (MSN)
The ability to create a fully analog recording in 2025 is exceedingly difficult and expensive. Analog recording decks require specialized maintenance, and the tape used for master recordings is vastly more expensive than recording to a hard drive. - Digital Trends
"Among the issues are determining what private philanthropy’s role should be in maintaining the arts-and-culture ecosystem and forging a unified effort to advocate for increased public funding." Key to the latter is forming partnerships with organizations elsewhere in Wisconsin, so as to counter "deep Milwaukee skepticism" in the state legislature. - Milwaukee Magazine
Among the findings of the study are that people value being closer to the stage than further away. Reserved seating is more valuable than general admission seating. However, for people with children and older respondents, reserved seating held significantly more value. - Butts In Seats
Every single aspect of human life across the broadest categories of human organization is being reoriented around the pursuit of attention. It is now the defining resource of our age. - The Atlantic
The hare-brained Online News Act has only been in effect for a few months, but already it has proved a disaster for small and emerging news media in Canada, with the country’s Indigenous media perhaps the hardest hit. - Canadian Dimension
National Theatre CEO Kate Varah: "Many I speak to in the sector feel they are at a breaking point with limited funds and conflicting demands. … They are being asked to find new revenue streams to stimulate national economic growth with reduced core funding and no central, annual capital maintenance fund." - WhatsOnStage (UK)
The changes demonstrated a miscalculation of not just the economic dynamic of the art market—for which supply is harder to stimulate than demand—but also its psychology. - The Art Newspaper
