ArtsJournal: Arts, Culture, Ideas

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The Internet Archive Publishing Ruling That Will Change How Libraries Work

The judge wrote that the IA had simply “copied the Works in Suit wholesale for no transformative purpose and created ebooks that … competed directly with the licensed ebooks.” The ruling went beyond this to say that controlled digital lending, or CDL, violates copyright law. - The Atlantic

It’s OK To Enjoy Yourself – Even To Have Fun – While Writing

Apparently, it's not necessary to be filled with self-doubt or depression while creating a novel. Wild if true. - LitHub

The Court Ruling Throwing The Future Of Libraries Into Doubt

Look, if the ruling stands, it's a disaster. "Knowledge is too precious to be abandoned entirely to the whims of the profit motive." - The Atlantic

Jerry Craft Wrote A Sweet, Positive Story About A Black Kid

It was all love for New Kid for a couple of years. And then the bans began. - Washington Post

My Students Are Struggling To Understand What They Read – Here’s Why

Too many of the undergrads taking the course I currently teach cannot read. They’re literate, of course, but unable to sit long enough to read a chapter from Henry David Thoreau’s Walden or an essay about an Australian ecofeminist nearly mauled to death by a crocodile. - AlJazeera

This Magazine With 1,000 Subscribers Has Become A Serious Force In Irish Literature

"Founded in Dublin in 1997 as a receptacle for 'all this great writing floating around,' The Stinging Fly has reached its 25th year as a launching pad for some of the country's most promising, and in time, some of its best known, poets and novelists." - The New York Times

How To Fight Book Bans

A poll published found 61 percent were more concerned that “some schools may ban books and censor topics that are educationally important” than by the prospect that instructional materials might offend students or parents. That skepticism isn’t partisan, either. - Washington Post

As Translated Literature Gains A Higher Profile, Translators Gain A New Role

"In the new visibility, the literary translator possesses a different sort of identity: still the articulate spokesperson for another language and culture, but self-conscious as an interpreter, at once scholarly and creative. The translator as writerly intellectual." - Literary Hub

Italy’s New Right-Wing Government Wants To Outlaw The Use Of Foreign Words (Yes, Just Like Mussolini Did)

"(The) eight-article proposal includes imposing a fine of up to €100,000 ($108,000) on the use of foresterismi, or foreign words that have Italian translations, in official and public-facing communications. This includes names or acronyms used for professional roles — say, manager, or CEO." - Quartz

James Patterson Contends The NYT Bestseller Charts Are Rigged. Is He Right?

The New York Times bestseller lists (there are more than a dozen of them) are the product of a lot of math, but also a good deal of art. Contrary to what many people seem to think, there is no practical way to count all the copies of any book that have sold in a given week. - Slate

Meet Manchester’s Book-Swapping Vending Machine

More than 600 books have been swapped so far in the new scheme in Manchester's Corn Exchange. - BBC

The Debilitating Cost Of Writing

There were stretches when I made so little money writing or editing that I couldn’t blame my parents for assuming they were hobbies. They used to wonder how I could spend weeks revising work I had already done, months on an idea or project that might never sell. - Esquire

$33 Million Rescue By New Government Saves National Library Of Australia’s Digital Archives From Closure

"Trove, the expansive archival database that holds billions of images, newspapers, documents, manuscripts and myriad other resources that are freely accessible to the public, was under threat, with its funding under the previous government scheduled to end on 30 June." - The Guardian

Cory Doctorow: Why I Don’t Produce My Audiobooks On Audible

None of my audiobooks are. Audible, the Amazon division that controls about 90% of the audiobook market, won't carry them because, if you want to sell your audiobooks on Audible, you have to let them add Amazon's Digital Rights Management (DRM) to them, and I refuse. - Publishers Weekly

A New Program To Get More Literature From The Indian Subcontinent Onto English-Language Bookshelves

Almost all of the South Asian books known internationally were written in English, but there's an extremely vibrant literary scene in the subcontinent's own languages. The University of Chicago's SALT project (South Asian Literature in Translation) aims to make that literature accessible to the wider world. - The Guardian

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